On his players showing ‘courage’…
We did. I think we caused Villa problems in the first half. I think when you get to 2-0 it’s always a funny scoreline. We felt after that we went a little bit flat if we’re really being honest and allowed a little bit of territory for Villa. Overall, I was pretty happy with the first half. I hated the second half – I have to be honest! I understand the anxiety because we want to hold onto something and it’s very rare we’ve been in that situation this season. It’s a new kind of experience.
I understand why we were probably kicking a little bit longer. But I felt there were opportunities to play because when we play we open teams up and we get opportunities. It’s not always about playing short. You can see there with Gemma Bonner at the end [her assist for Csillag] there were spaces beyond because we’ve been brave instead of just taking a free-kick and kick it long. We’ve been brave, pulled them out of position and used the spaces that they leave.
On whether the slight drop-off with a goal lead was down to confidence…
I wouldn’t necessarily say confidence, but I feel that the most important thing I have to get across to them is to play with courage. We didn’t really do that last week. We probably matched up Man United and played more direct like they do and they’re very good at it. Aston Villa are probably the same and nine times out of 10 are probably better than us at doing that way. When we play, we show our quality and we get opportunities and we took our chances today, which was really good.