Ipswich Town Women’s boss Joe Sheehan said he was proud of the progress the Tractor Girls have made following their 1-0 Vitality Women’s FA Cup quarter-final defeat to West Ham at the Goldstar Ground.

The Blues fared far better against the Hammers than they did in their last game against Women’s Super League opposition, the 10-0 loss to Manchester City in the fifth round of the FA Cup two years ago.

“A challenging game, really good team we’ve played against, who, let’s be honest, were in control of the game throughout,” Sheehan said.

“A testament to us that we’ve only got to look back to two years ago when we conceded 10 and I didn’t feel today we were being peppered as we had been previously when we played a team in the WSL.

“It shows the progress we’ve made, an opportunity to see how much we’ve grown and developed and whilst West Ham were in control today, I felt we defended strong and we looked OK.

“I’m just a little bit disappointed, which I think is a huge positive, that we didn’t play as well as we should have done or could have done with the ball because we are capable of better. It just meant we became a little bit predictable.

“But that’s probably on me because of how we set our team up and what we were trying to achieve, but if we could have put together two or three passes and maybe exploited different areas, who knows if we could have got a different kind of entry into the final third that would have resulted in a goal.”

He added: “I’m so proud of the progress we’ve made and I’m hoping we gave an account of ourselves that people can go ‘OK, this lot can compete’.

“We can play better. As I said, I thought we defended really well but we didn’t do as well as we could have done with the ball, we didn’t force enough issues in the final third to try and get back in the game.”

Skipper Bonnie Horwood said: “Extremely proud of the girls, I thought everyone put in a 100 per cent shift the whole game.

“Unlucky with the 1-0. I think they did dominate the ball at times but we showed resilience and did well.

“I don’t think we could have given any more, just unlucky with the result but the main focus now will return to the league and we can take the positives from today into that.

“They’re two leagues above us, they do this day-in, day-out as their full-time job. We didn’t get embarrassed at all today and put in 100 per cent effort.”

Elsewhere, in the FA Women’s National League Southern Premier Division third-placed Southampton won 4-0 at Cardiff to move three points closer to the Blues and Oxford, who are second.

Photo: ITFC Women

Edmundo added 08:34 - Mar 21 Stirring display. A team worthy of the second tier... COYB
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harlingblue added 02:58 - Mar 24 A great effort against WPL opposition. Manager Sheehan obviously set his team out to be hard to beat, although doing this we had no attacking threat during the whole game, obviously a learning curve from our last adventure in the later stages of this cup, a few years ago against Man City. Now to win this league, win the play off game, and attain a well deserved promotion to The Championship. Onwards and upwards!

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