Four goals in the last 18 minutes made for an unflattering final scoreline as Spurs Women's delayed 2019/20 FA Cup campaign came to an end against Arsenal at Meadow Park on Saturday (26 September).
In what was the first time we've reached the last eight of the competition in our history, we'd grown into the contest in the opening half-an-hour and were firmly in the game until Jordan Nobbs capitalised on a mistake at the back to give the Gunners a 72nd-minute advantage.
Lisa Evans quickly followed up with the second to make it 2-0 and ended up taking home the match ball after adding two more in the latter stages to complete her hat-trick, sending the hosts through to face Manchester City or Leicester City in the last four.
Karen Hills and Juan Amoros made four changes to the side that narrowly lost 1-0 to Everton a fortnight ago as Chloe Peplow, Gemma Davison and Rosella Ayane made their first starts of the season, while Siri Worm returned to the starting 11 for a match that was initially due to be played in March before the competition was put on hiatus over the coronavirus pandemic.
Arsenal had the first chance after six minutes with Caitlin Foord’s header from Leah Williamson’s cross rattling the crossbar, but we grew into the game, Kerys Harrop and Shelina Zadorsky particularly diligent at centre-back, and the impressive Alanna Kennedy nearly gave us the lead four minutes before the break with a skilled move, driving into the opposition box, cutting outside and darting past two Arsenal defenders before firing in a dangerous cross that Gunners goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger had little choice but to tip over.
With Ria Percival making determined runs forward down the right, Kennedy was seeing a lot of the ball in central midfield and went close again 10 minutes into the second half when Peplow’s corner was floated perfectly to her unmarked in the box but, despite making good contact on the ball, her headed effort flew wide of the goal.
Arsenal had a couple of near-misses from distance, but it was Nobbs who broke the deadlock with 18 minutes left to play. The England international netted with a long-range lob after Ashleigh Neville had lost possession to make it 1-0 to the hosts. A minute later, Evans doubled Arsenal’s lead when she was played through by Vivianne Miedema into the box, before finishing low to Becky Spencer’s left.
Hills and Amoros made changes but Evans added a third for the hosts six minutes before full-time. Kim Little hit a powerful pass to Evans, who took a touch before striking a left-footed shot into the bottom right corner. And Evans wrapped up her hat-trick and Arsenal’s win six minutes later, tapping in Beth Mead’s low cross from the right.
With a fresh FA Cup campaign set to begin later in the season, attentions now turn back to the Barclays FA Women’s Super League as we take on Manchester City next weekend.
Head Coach Juan Amoros said after the game: “I'm gutted for the team really because we worked extremely well for 65 minutes, maybe a couple of mistakes, then we are 2-0 down and once you go 2-0 down it's a high mountain to climb and we ended up losing 4-0 once we went a bit more aggressive on the tactics. At the end of the day it was a win or lose game and unfortunately we lost, so it's disappointing. People will look at the scoreline but for us, with our philosophy, we will do everything we can to win the game and at that moment in time we were 2-0 down, we needed to take some decisions to try to send more people forward, to try to get goals and to try to come back into the game but in this case it didn't happen, it was the other way.”
