Becky Spencer on historic victory over City: “I’m really proud of the team”
It was a performance to admire from Becky Spencer as she produced two stunning saves in the penalty shootout to inspire us to victory over Manchester City at Brisbane Road.
Despite falling behind early on, albeit an unfortunate deflection that wrong-footed our number 22, we didn’t dwell and grew into the game, eventually finding the equaliser in the sixth minute of injury time as Bethany England capitalised on a City miscommunication to force the game into extra time.
The Jamaican international had to be alert in the additional 30 minutes, getting a strong hand on Chloe Kelly’s curling effort to push it around the post, with the game heading into penalties and that’s where Spencer came alive.
Alex Greenwood and Kelly – who both scored penalties in the World Cup last summer – were both denied superbly by Spencer and, although Rosella Ayane saw her spot-kick saved by Khiara Keating, we converted the rest of our penalties and saw us progress to the last four of the competition.
However, when speaking to SPURSPLAY after the game, Spencer made sure to pass the praise onto her teammates after a historic victory in the Women’s FA Cup.
She said: “I’m really proud of the team, to be honest. I felt like we controlled the game in large parts and it just shows if you work hard as a team, stick as a unit and defend well, anything can happen. I’m just so proud of everyone and how they conducted themselves.
“Their goal was scrappy, a deflection, but conceding that early we knew that we had the rest of the game to go and we all believed in ourselves, we created plenty of chances and defended so well.
“Obviously, getting to the semi-final for the first time is historic for the Club and, hopefully, we can go one step further.”