Martin on the squad’s mentality…
“It’s been a different week, different emotions, but that doesn’t change the group.
They’ve trained really well, they’ve responded from the defeat against Man City. We did ok in the Villa game, came away with two points, which is important. We showed character to win the penalty shootout, which is even better for me in terms of the step, the direction we want to go in. We’ve done exceptionally well, credit to the players, the staff – they’ve enabled everything to be smooth, as well as support people around.”
Martin on Jess Naz…
“Good. She’s had good support from the Club, from myself, teammates and staff. (She’s) Obviously rocked by that sort of message, the abuse, [it’s] not acceptable. But she’s doing well.”
Martin on whether Jess will feature this weekend…
“Of course. I will liaise very closely with Jess, as I have done over the last few days, along with staff here and leadership at the Club. Whatever Jess feels, we’ll support her with that. We’ll see how she is tomorrow.”
Martin on Matt Beard…
“[A] really special person. Big character, big heart and a big icon in football – not just Women’s football, football as a whole. He has probably put Women’s football on the map where it is. With his success and his honours, he’s had with Chelsea, Liverpool, Bristol, West Ham and so on. [it’s] a huge, huge loss. I have a lot of empathy for his family because it’s a torrid time they’re going through. It’s not a nice thing.”
Martin on how he’ll prepare the players…
“It’s more a continuation of where we’re going and what we want to do. We don’t want to lose the identity and the focus of where we’re going, but we know that takes time but we want to make sure we improve in every performance. I think we’ve done that in a lot of different ways. There’s still steps to take, there’s going to be bumps in the road, we know that, but if you look at it from a defensive perspective, we’ve had clean sheets against West Ham, Everton, Aston Villa… three out of four games. From that perspective, it puts us in a good place, so there’s positives to take. We have to make sure we continue to evolve for this game against Leicester.”
Martin on Adam Jeffrey…
“[He brings] vast experience, knowledge. It's not what Spurs didn’t have, it’s what he’s going to give to us as an individual because everyone’s different. He's going to give us a high level of detail, technically… very big in terms of his attention to detail tactically, too. He’s had vast experience in the WSL, which is important. Now he’s going to add huge knowledge to the staff, playing group and the Club moving forward.”
Martin on Leicester City…
“I’m expecting a really tough one (game). That’s what I’ve said to the players today. When you look at the games they’ve just had, 1-0 defeat to Chelsea which was a close contest. They’ve held on against Liverpool, even though they went down to ten, they still did really well. They’re very well organised and very front-footed defensively, brave with the ball and can cause you a lot of problems with their front line and two wing backs. We’re expecting a tough game, so we know we need to be at our best.”
Martin on Lize Kop’s penalty shootout heroics…
“Lize has made some wonderful saves within games. She’s now obviously saved two penalties in the Cup. In those areas, she’s a brave goalkeeper. She prides herself on those really big moments. I want to make sure when we come into those, Lize can take the headlines, and she certainly has on the two occasions that we’ve seen.”