On Hayley Nolan’s fitness…
Hayley has been struggling with an ongoing shoulder issue. But again, she's had a procedure on the shoulder. She picked up an injury in pre-season and there will now be a period of rehabilitation after the procedure to make sure that she is fit and ready to go when she returns.
On Chelsea loanee Jorja Fox, who recently suffered an ACL injury…
Jorja I'm devastated for. She worked so hard in terms of coming back from her first ACL. Obviously, I knew Jorja from a previous club. I know what a talent and what potential and future Jorja’s got, and it's devastating for her to be back in the position again for the ACL.
My thoughts are really with her. I've obviously been in contact with her and wished her well. Fingers crossed she can keep that mentality and the long process of rehabbing again to keep her future as bright [as possible], because she's a great player. And this season she would have been a huge part of our journey. It wasn't meant to be, but I wish her all the best.
On the promise of the first-half showing at Spurs…
We need to unpick it for our future and for our performances. I have a group that is extremely dedicated to improvement and I have coaching staff that are capable of analysing the game to make sure that we're being thorough with our work.
I myself have looked at the statistics of the game and I think for me, obviously, the first-half was great, but I think it actually lasted a little bit longer than that in terms of the performance. I think we got almost into 55, 60, 65 minutes of being okay. There are some really positive statistics in there.
We had a lot of attacking corners, for example, but what that leads to in terms of outcomes, we're going to need to unpick. We had a good possession stat, but we need to make sure that we're entering the final third and entering the penalty area to get some chances inside the penalty area.
Obviously we need to look at the transitions in terms of the shape under the ball and making sure that when we're sustaining attacks, we're really clean because we’ll get caught out on the turnover if we're not diligent with our passing and clean and accurate.
We know we need to do that. The players are capable, there's no doubt about it. I back the group in terms of that, and I know that we'll be working this week hard into the fixture to make sure that our turnovers are successful and we're careful with the ball, which ultimately cost us a little bit at the weekend. We have to make sure that that is a clear piece that we work on going forwards.
For beyond Chelsea, for the future in terms of the games that we've got coming, Chelsea will look a little bit different in terms of the way we approach the game, but those statistics and that analysis will be relevant for the game and beyond.
