Martin on what the FA Cup means to him…
“[It’s a] prestigious competition, an amazing competition. I was lucky enough to get to a final with Manchester United at Wembley. It’s a moment you want to be a part of as a coach, as a club, and the players definitely want to be part of that. As I always do, with every game, I take every game seriously and I don't see any of these cup competitions as ones where we will rotate for the sake of it. We go into the game with the strongest team to be competitive, and we want to compete for all honours.”
On wanting to repeat our historic run in the Women’s FA Cup in 2024, where we reached the Final for the first time...
“Yeah, 100 per cent. You see it around the training ground and in our building, you see some of the pictures from that final. We've seen some of the awards, obviously, you've got a runners-up medal from that game and players speak about it very widely because the players, the Club and I know the FA Cup is a cup that can cause upsets. It can also provide a lot of success and probably happiness for a lot of fans because you're playing at one of the biggest, if not, the most unique stadium in world football at Wembley. We want to make sure that we have the opportunity to do that again.”
On the importance of Ella Morris, and younger players, committing their future with the Club and how she is getting on in her recovery…
“Ella’s a wonderful person. I haven't been fortunate enough to work with her on the grass yet, but she's part of a lot of our meetings going into games, our strategy meetings, and she's part of anything we do individually or unit based. She's very big on her own education and development. She got a well-deserved Lionesses call-up (last year) and, unfortunately, got injured on that camp. She has worked tirelessly through rehabilitation, which can be tiring and it can be dark, you can be on your own doing it. She's got through that really, really well, and she's back on the pitch training. She's getting closer and closer to team training, which is not so far away for her now. I'm really excited to have her back. I think her signing a new contract was a real statement of intent from us as a Club to want to keep the best talented young players, especially English players. I think Ella knows that for her development and her growth, we can play a big part in that. She knows what the Club have done for her to get her that recognition nationally and she wants to get back there. I have no doubt with her quality, and when she gets herself back to full fitness and sharpness, that she'll be back around that Lionesses squad.”
On facing the same team in back-to-back weekends…
“We've just done this before the break against Manchester United, so it seems to be something that's come back around. Don't get me wrong, it's a little bit unusual, as you say, but whoever you draw in these competitions you must perform against. It has seen us playing them back-to-back, probably me and Rick [Passmoor] will be sick of one another by the end of the game! It's not easy to plan for, but it makes it more streamlined, because you're working off the same opponent, but you have to find a way you can be a little bit different in the second game, how you can maybe change things - whether that's personnel or tactically - and to be a little bit more unpredictable. The planning process has been the same as it was the week before, we're just trying to use some new information and data we picked up from the game in the league.”
On what the team can achieve for the rest of the season…
“I don't want to put a ceiling on what we can achieve because, as soon as you do that, you probably take your foot off the pedal a little bit and, whatever we want to achieve, we can do it by work ethic, attitude, behaviour, and the way we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch. If I had put a ceiling on it at the start of the season, maybe we would have limited what we could have achieved, and I've said from the start, I don't want to put a limit on anything we do. I believe the players are in a really good space, we're working hard, we're now competitive and we've added new players to the group, which freshens the group. We know where we want to be better at and if we continue to perform at high levels, we definitely need to build on performance in certain aspects of our game, which we are working on. If we do that, we can achieve whatever we want.”
On what he learnt from last weekend’s game against Leicester…
“That we needed to get into a rhythm a bit earlier. We needed to be more ruthless and more efficient in the attacking third, we need to strengthen relationships with the players who have been here and new players who have come in, to make us more efficient. I learnt a lot in terms of what we knew about Leicester, they’re resilient, hard to play against, good with the ball, very direct with their attacks, but I learnt a lot about us in terms of what we've done now since we've come back in and where we need to go. We've got steps to take, definitely with the ball, but off the ball, there were a lot of aspects where we were too loose defensively, we gave them too much time, there were too many areas to attack, so we need to get back to being a team that's hard to beat, being organised and efficient, but making sure we defend on the front foot.”
On whether he was surprised about Signe Gaupset’s impressive start…
“Nothing surprised me about her debut because I know what she's capable of. She's a wonderful player, her application, attitude and behaviours are very good to put herself in a position where she can go on the field and perform. I think she knows she was probably at about 30-40% of her maximum but she's just come off the back of a season in Norway and she's had a bit of an off-season, so she's not fully sharp and is not a full fitness yet. She's performed to a good level, and you can definitely see the qualities she possesses, and there'll be more to come. Her relationship with the players, she's building them every day on the pitch, but they take time for players understand each other personally, professionally while understanding each other’s strengths and areas where they feel they can impact and complement others. She's doing that really well on the pitch now in training. She's a very intelligent person, very mature and she'll build those relationships quite quickly, but we also need to give her the opportunity and a bit of time to find her feet within this league at the same time.”
On what Maika Hamano has brought to the squad…
“[She’s] a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful person. [From the] First time I met her, there has never been a day when there’s not a smile on Maika’s face. She very infectious on the group with her personality and her character. Her energy is brilliant around the training ground, around the group, in training, around the pitch, and works extremely hard, is very, very mature and will add various qualities to us as a team. [She] Gives us a different profile and characteristics in numerous positions. As a person, she is wonderful, works so hard and is very, very grounded. I think she's had such a big impact on a lot of players in this team, and you can maybe see with her appearance, when you see her as an individual, you'll see a smile on her face, you'll see her laughing and joking. She's a wonderful human.”
On the decision-making process for younger players regarding loans and dual registrations…
“That's a really good question because we have a lot of good talented players in our PGA squad and some of them train up with us quite consistently. There's some who are already on dual registrations because it's right for their development. We have some really young players in our senior squad now that are doing really well and I feel they’re getting closer to where we want them to be, to our identity, our environment, us physicality and of what we want to look like as a team. Sometimes it's good to have those players with you consistently. There's not one [player], younger or older, that doesn't want to play a lot of minutes because that's what they're here to do as professional footballers, but you have to weigh up so many different aspects and probably avenues with that of what is right for their development and their growth at this moment in time. Is it a consistent playing environment and some minutes? Is it going out on loan and getting minutes? But, also, what do those minutes look like? This is big for me. Is it just that you're guaranteed to those minutes? Which then you don't really earn the right to be on the pitch maybe at times. You maybe get it for the sake of getting it. I want the players' professional mindset and attitude to know that they have to earn the right to be on the pitch. We make so many different decisions along the way. There'll be some of those dual registrations maybe that happen for the younger players, but I have a very close eye and close relationship with the Academy Manager Nick [Hardy] there. We're liaising weekly on who we feel is right at this moment to be around the group and train, who maybe needs a dual registration and needs a little bit more exposure to senior football. We make those decisions and check in regularly with the academy squad.”
On whether the team has what it takes to go far in the FA Cup this campaign…
“I have no doubts that we can, when we perform to the levels I know we can, and we've shown that consistently through large parts of the season. If you look at us in the first half of the season, I think we performed to a good level and, if we perform to a higher level than what we usually do and we go above and beyond the levels we've shown in this first part of the season, I have no doubts we can be around that part of the competition in the latter stages. But that is all determined by performances in the earlier stages. If we step up in the right moments, and also in cup competitions, you have to make sure you're on it from the start of the game because it's a one-off game, there's no two legs in it. So, we need to make sure that when we're in those latter stages of competitions, if we want to be there, we've got to show more ambition, more passion, more desire and I have no doubts this playing group can do that.”