McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

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McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

Abbie McManus says LCFC Women must take away the positives from the opening stages of their Vitality Women’s FA Cup reverse to Chelsea on Saturday.

2022-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

by Sam Jones

Published

27 Feb, 2022

McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

Abbie McManus says LCFC Women must take away the positives from the opening stages of their Vitality Women’s FA Cup reverse to Chelsea on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2022-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

Abbie McManus says LCFC Women must take away the positives from the opening stages of their Vitality Women’s FA Cup reverse to Chelsea on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2022-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

Abbie McManus says LCFC Women must take away the positives from the opening stages of their Vitality Women’s FA Cup reverse to Chelsea on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2022-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

McManus: Focus On Our Early Play

Abbie McManus says LCFC Women must take away the positives from the opening stages of their Vitality Women’s FA Cup reverse to Chelsea on Saturday.

Sam Jones

2022-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

_- Abbie McManus speaks following LCFC Women’s 7-0 defeat to Chelsea in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup- City’s bright start at Kingsmeadow was stopped in its tracks by Sophie Howard’s early red card_- The hosts progressed into the quarter-finals with five goals during a ruthless second half- Attention has already turned to focusing on the league campaign, the defender told LCFC TV

The visitors, who were reduced to 10 players early on, began the better of the two sides but were beaten 7-0 by a ruthless performance from the cup holders in the fifth-round tie at Kingsmeadow. Two goals to the good at the break, Emma Hayes’ side scored a further five times in the second half.

McManus, who played at the heart of City’s defence, believes Leicester must not allow their confidence to be knocked by the heavy defeat, given that they played the majority of the game with a numerical disadvantage.

She said: “As captain today, I said to the girls at the end of the game, we need to watch that first 18-20 minutes where we were on top, and it looked like it was going to be a good game. We were forcing Chelsea into making mistakes, had many corners down this end and they were scrambling it off the line.

“Lydia [Bedford] has spoken to us already and she said in the huddle, those are the 18 minutes where it was a fair game. We were definitely on top so we can only take the positives from that and bring them into next week and Saturday against Man Utd.”

The game hinged on a 17th-minute red card shown to Sophie Howard for a challenge on Pernille Harder, which the referee adjudged to be dangerous play. That shifted the momentum in Chelsea’s favour – and they took full advantage.

Explaining her viewpoint on the sending off to LCFC TV, the 29-year-old said: “Obviously I’ve not really watched it back myself but, in the game, I thought it was a great tackle, a strong tackle, that’s all about Sophie Howard as a player, but unfortunately the ref deemed that as a red card.

“We went down to 10 quite early, and I definitely think it would have been a different game had Howard stayed on the pitch. It’s disappointing, but we can’t dwell on that, and I said that to the girls at half-time.

“The ref has made that decision and there’s nothing else we can do. We have to get on with it. We had another 45 minutes to go and unfortunately it didn’t go our way today. Hopefully we can put that right against Man Utd.”

The former Manchester United defender says they will not be deterred in their quest to continue climbing the Barclays FA Women’s Super League table. Winning two out of two in February has lifted the Foxes up to 10th ahead of meeting McManus' former side on Saturday, before Chelsea visit King Power Stadium.

She added: “It’s always hard coming to the champions, they are for a reason. We’re in a relegation battle, we know we’ve got them again in the league in a couple of weeks and hopefully then we can put what didn’t happen today right in the league. We’ve got United next, and we can’t wait to get back on the pitch.

“Against a side like Chelsea, we knew, with a player down, it’s tough and I thought the girls dug deep but unfortunately there’s no stopping that strike force and we tried our best but we’re out of the FA Cup now and we’ll concentrate on the league next Saturday.”

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