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Women's football talking points: Bethany England enhances call-up claims while Durham cause FA Cup upset
The Women's FA Cup continued at pace on Sunday as the quarter-finalists were decided. Chelsea versus Arsenal was the undoubted headline game of the fifth round when the draw was made but Durham also made sure to muscle in on the action with their shock win over Bristol City. Telegraph Sport wraps up the biggest talking points ahead of Monday night's quarter-final draw.
England for England, says Emma Hayes
The ease with which Chelsea’s top scorer Bethany England plundered her 13th and 14th goals of the season on Sunday reignited the debate over just how long we will have to wait to see England in, ahem, an England shirt. 14 goals in 15 games means England is currently averaging a goal every 84 minutes, and against Arsenal she was her typical sprightly, inventive and audacious self.
England, 24, is as prolific as Manchester City’s Nikita Parris (19 in 20, or a goal every 85 minutes) and 20-year-old City forward Georgia Stanway (13 in 16, or a goal every 73 minutes), but unlike her northern counterparts has not been capped for England since Under 23 level in 2015. Parris is the same age but has 23 senior caps and Stanway made her senior debut in November last year.
Chelsea boss Emma Hayes has no doubt that England is good enough to cut it at international level but admits the proximity of the World Cup - England’s opening game against Scotland is now just 111 days away - will preoccupy Phil Neville.
“I’ve said it before: in World Cup year, it’s important that England know their [playing] group,” Hayes said. “It’s often difficult for a player to break into that when they’ve been building [momentum] in a [league] campaign. I understand if she doesn’t get called up for that reason. Do I think Beth will prosper and make the England level? Yeah, I do, but that’s just merely a matter of time. I think she’s getting closer and closer but they don’t make it easy - you really have to push to get to that level. Wonderful credit to her because she’s really deserving of where she is at this moment.”
Arsenal find the positives in FA Cup exit
Arsenal boss Joe Montemurro has been loathe to blame any of his side’s stumbles on an injury list so lengthy that it rendered him unable to name a full bench for his side’s trip to Chelsea on Sunday. By contrast, Chelsea's embarrassment of riches meant they went 70 minutes before introducing reigning player of the year Fran Kirby.
“They have twenty players of international standard that they can call on,” Montemurro said of Chelsea. “They’ve got the best squad in the league.”
Montemurro will not see the majority of his absentees “until mid-March” and has “effectively twelve fit players at the moment that we’re asking to play three games this week”. Arsenal host Yeovil in the league on Wednesday before their League Cup final against Manchester City on Saturday. “For the last eight or nine weeks, we’ve been digging to the bottom ebbs of the squad,” Montemurro added. “We’re asking players to back up game after game after game.
“This week was the first week we’ve actually had a proper training week. We’re managing the loads with a fine toothed comb and a microscope. It’s more a mental state and we just have to be smart. At 3-0 when the game was gone today, we took the foot off the pedal a little bit to save ourselves for Yeovil. We had to.
“It hasn’t stopped for us. This could be a blessing in disguise - we get a little bit of breathing space now we’re out of this tournament. We can concentrate on the league and the Continental Cup. We have to make sure we’re in control of our destiny.”
Good week for…
Durham, who provided the biggest shock of the FA Cup fifth round when they dismissed Bristol City 2-0. Lisa Robertson’s brace included one finish from the halfway line.
Bad week for…
Bristol City, the only top-tier team to be undone by a club from the Championship this weekend.
The Bristol City manager, Tanya Oxtoby, pulled few punches in a post-match assessment that began with the words “players need to really have a good, hard look at themselves about what standards we set for ourselves.”
More concerning for Oxtoby, though, was Sarah Robson’s high boot on City’s Lucy Graham, the one blot on Durham’s otherwise excellent performance, that saw Graham leave the field after ten minutes: her afternoon consisted of five minutes of play and five minutes of medical treatment. That Robson was never cautioned - City only won the free-kick - may raise further troubling questions given the FA have admitted on several occasions that referees in the women’s game are too reluctant to punish excessive force challenges.
“I’m really frustrated at that,” Oxtoby added. “It was a really poor challenge and there wasn’t even a card - Lucy’s had to go to hospital to check that her eye’s OK. There’s no place for that in our game and we just hope there’s no long-term damage.”
Performance of the week
It is rare to see a tweet age as badly as the gem Aston Villa Ladies’ social media team blessed us with at 5:11pm. “That looks to be it,” they said of their FA Cup fifth round game against Sheffield United. “Rayner sends a fantastic driven effort into the far corner. Villa 1-3 Sheffield United.”
At 2-0 down on 71 minutes, a defeat looked a foregone conclusion and the assembled press were probably polishing the conclusions on match reports that, surely, would not be changing now. What no one banked on, though, was Jodie Hutton, the player who had pulled one back for the hosts on 72 minutes, converting a penalty three minutes from time and then forcing extra-time with the final kick of the game.
United struck the bar in a taut final 15 minutes but fittingly it was Hutton who scored the decisive spot kick in the shootout and secured Villa’s place among the last eight in the Women’s FA Cup. They are now the lowest-ranked side remaining in the competition and have surely earned a test against one of the five Super League sides in the hat for the next round.
Hutton, despite only turning 18 this month, is the homegrown jewel in their crown, and her role in this remarkable feat of escapology only reinforced this.