Everton Ladies Showed What We're Made Of against Birmingham

George: We Showed What We're Made Of

Defender pleased with clean sheet in Blue Girls' win over Birmingham.

Everton Ladies centre-back Gabby George praised her teammates with the solid performance shown in the 1-0 win against a resilient Birmingham City on Thursday night.

The Blue Girls earned their second straight victory in the Continental Cup thanks to Courtney Sweetman-Kirk’s 12th-minute goal.

And George was particularly to see the Everton backline limit their WSL 1 counterparts to few chances throughout the game in order to secure a hard-fought win.

“I am very pleased with the clean sheet,” said the 20-year-old. “We have been working hard to try to get them in the league, unfortunately it’s not worked out.

“We have put in some very good performances and not got anything from it but to get three points on the board in the Continental Cup with the goal and the clean sheet, we couldn’t ask for much more.

“I thought we put in a good performance. We showed we could play, defend and all parts of our game against a very good side.”

The Blue Girls have had a tough start to life in WSL 1, playing well against some of the division’s leading sides but coming away empty-handed to date.

Ahead of Sunday’s Continental Cup clash at Manchester City (6pm kick-off), boss Andy Spence was hoping Thursday’s result would give his team extra belief they can beat the best.

“I don’t know whether I’ve bored people by saying it, but I knew a result was around the corner to back up the good performances,” he said. “We really had to dig in at times, we played a really tough and physical side in Birmingham.

“To keep a clean sheet against one of the top WSL 1 teams is a really good sign. We won’t get too over-excited, we’ve got to back that up now, we go to Manchester City, so it doesn’t get any easier!

“We took our chances but we started the game a lot better, it took us until half-time to really get going the last time we played them but this time we were on it from the first minute and I think that’s been a good feature of our play.”

Spence added: “What really impressed me was seeing a team putting bodies on the line. The girls really dug in, from front to back everyone contributed to a really dogged second-half display and it’s just reward from a build-up of good performances and we are pleased to pick up a really good result as well.”

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