Ashleigh Neville: “Everyone kept the momentum”

From the starting 11 to the five substitutes who came on in the second half, Ashleigh Neville was delighted with the performance levels from the whole squad in Sunday’s 8-0 win against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Women’s Super League.

“It was relentless,” she said after the game. “The girls put in a shift today. We’ve gone away from training this week where we’ve said ‘take on shots, take on shots’, and the girls have done that today and eight goals is a great feeling.”

Neville is on fine form so far this season, with four goals and two assists to her name in six appearances in all competitions already in 2022/23.

“I don’t know where they’ve come from if I’m honest! But two goals and two assists today, which is great. It would’ve been nice to get the hat-trick, but with eight goals, you can’t really complain.”

Neville’s first goal on Sunday came by way of an accurate Angharad James corner, but it was Eveliina Summanen who nodded the ball into Ashleigh’s path to volley back across goal into the top right corner.

“I think it was Ev! I was judging the little flick and Ev got the flick on, so yeah, the assist’s Ev’s!”

For our fourth goal of the afternoon, Neville put Drew Spence through on goal with a back heel pass forward. Spence showed great footwork to beat Victoria Williams and find the back of the net.

“I thought she was going to take it first time, and then she took that extra little touch just to take the defender off and what a great finish into the bottom corner.

“Everyone today who started the game and everyone who came on kept the momentum going and everyone was on the same page and wanted the same thing. It’s just a great result overall.

“It’s massive for us. We’ve been in games where we can only score one or two goals and today we’ve shown that we can come here and put goals past teams so we just need to continue that week in, week out now.”

Gracie Pearse came on for her Spurs debut when we were 7-0 up, and Neville was delighted to see her teammate make her first appearance for the club at the age of 20.

“She’s worked really hard. She’s a great girl and she gives everything in training and it’s a very well deserved debut for her today, so I’m really happy for her.”