Dan McNamara praised his Wolves Women side’s ‘professional performance’ which earned victory over Sporting Khalsa on Wednesday evening.
Wolves were comfortable 4-0 winners over Sporting Khalsa thanks to four second-half goals and McNamara was pleased with his team’s performance, while touching on the defensive efforts from his side, as well as looking ahead to a top of the table clash against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Sunday afternoon.
On the performance against Khalsa
“A really professional performance. It took it out of them on Saturday, the girls were feeling it, they’ve felt it all week.
“This is always a tricky one, Sporting Khalsa, they’re physical, they want to defend and fight because it’s a derby. I thought they gave a really good account of themselves in the first half.
“But I said to the girls at half-time, you’ve still created those chances to score. I know the forward players were a little disappointed we didn’t go into half-time ahead. I said stick at it, we were playing effectively against their formation and eventually the quality shone through in the end.
“It was probably Quigley’s easiest finish of her career to set us off, but from then on it was really good. Overall, it was professional, really good and loads of minutes for different people and we’ve come through with no injuries.”
On the defensive efforts
“Firstly, I thought Lily Simkin was outstanding, picking up the player of the match award - she was tremendous. We didn’t know where she would be in terms of her rehab, but if that’s the starting point, then we'll struggle to keep her at this club because I thought she was phenomenal.
“Hopefully we can keep working with her for many years to come because she is such a bright player, she defends really well, covers the ground well, she can head it and pass it.
“But that's not to take anything away from Jenner and Morphet, or Smith and Roberts when they came on. I thought the whole defensive line worked well and earnt the clean sheet.
“Charlotte Clarke did well as well, coming in and playing her first league minutes. Overall, really pleased with how they defended and to get the clean sheet.”
On facing Forest at the weekend
“What I feel going into the game on Sunday is that there should only be one winner. It’s incredible that we have seven games left and we have a sniff. Burnley and Stoke have also done well tonight so no-one is letting up. Us three have won, so it’s up to Forest to do their job tomorrow evening.
“I’ve said to the girls, we should go there and enjoy it at the City Ground. We shouldn’t be competing with what is on offer at Forest at the minute, but we’ll prepare well and make sure the girls have a game plan that we feel will work well against what they do.
“Hopefully we can go there and get a positive result, but if we don’t we’ll continue to work hard during the week. If the group performs the way they have for the past 12 league games since Forest at home here, then hopefully we can go and get a positive result which these lot are more than capable of.”
Written by Callum Greybanks
