Quarter-final defeat to City in Conti Cup
Our journey in this season's Continental Tyres League Cup came to an end at the quarter-final stage with a 1-0 home defeat to Manchester City Women on Wednesday night.
It took a first-half thunderbolt from Yui Hasegawa to settle the tie, but we struggled to create chances against a City side paying their second visit to Brisbane Road in 10 days following their 2-0 victory in the Women's Super League the weekend before last, Kit Graham going closest for us with a second-half header from a corner.
It means we must now pin our hopes on the Women's FA Cup, which continues on Saturday evening with a home tie against Charlton Athletic.
Shuang Wang earned her first start in our colours as one of two changes from Sunday's draw with Liverpool in the WSL, but it was City who had the greater amount of attempts at goal. Jess Park and Chloe Kelly both tested Barbora Votikova while Hasegawa and Khadija Shaw were narrowly off-target before City took the lead out of nothing on 33 minutes, Kelly's short corner seeing Filippa Angeldahl tee up Hasegawa, who blasted high into the net from 20 yards out.
Votikova claimed Hemp's rising shot in the latter stages of the first half while we continued to build promisingly from the back but found it difficult to have any meaningful forays into the final third. Our best chance came from a set-piece on 64 minutes, as Graham diverted Eveliina Summanen's corner towards the back post, but it proved a routine stop for goalkeeper Khiara Keating in the end. Shaw subsequently headed just wide for City, while substitute Mary Fowler fired over the bar and then forced a good stop from Votikova from the left angle inside the box in the closing moments, but we simply couldn't find a way back into the tie as we slipped to our third defeat to City this season, albeit by the most slender of margins.
Match data
Goal: Manchester City - Hasegawa 33.
Referee: Amy Fearn.
Venue: Brisbane Road, London.
Weather: Cloudy, six degrees.
Attendance: 731.