Summanen: ‘We have high ambitions, we need to perform better’

Eveliina Summanen painted a disappointment figure following our 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on Monday afternoon as that brought an end to our Adobe Women’s FA Cup journey at the quarter-final stage – but acknowledged the much-improved second half performance.

Finding ourselves one goal down at the break, after Sam Kerr headed home for the hosts five minutes before half time, we knew a response was needed in the second period and, for a third consecutive match, we got one at Kingsmeadow.

The Finland international was at the heart of it. Her in-swinging free-kick from the far left-hand side looping over everyone inside the box, including Hannah Hampton, and finding the top corner to get us back on level terms seven minutes after the restart.

Both sides had opportunities for the rest of the half, where we pushed the Blues all the way, but four minutes from time, Veerle Buurman unleashed a powerful strike into the top corner to send Chelsea through to the final four of the competition.

“Obviously disappointed,” Eveliina Summanen told us, reflecting on the outcome. “I think, in the second half, we did good things and we were really on top of the game and had a good momentum, but Chelsea is a good team, they had a couple of good chances and deserved the win at the end of the day, but obviously disappointed.

“We came into the second half with way more confidence than in first half, where we stayed quite a lot in our defensive block, which was ok still and we're willing to do that - that's how we want to be and if we have to do that, then we do it.

“But, second half, we forced Chelsea to play some longer balls and give us the possession and we enjoyed the ball a little bit. Then, at the same time, we need to utilise a little bit more on those situations.”

Although that stretched our winless run to four games in all competitions, there were positives to take from the clash with the Blues and with just three matches left to play in the campaign, Eveliina wants to make sure we ‘bounce back’ from the difficult results in recent weeks and give something back to the fans.

“It's been tough,” the midfielder added. “We've also played good teams, but we have high ambitions and we need to perform better as well if we want to reach the gap between us and the top teams. I think you need to take every single game as a part of the journey and we're still doing the right things.

“We're still playing the way I like, exciting football, and we want to improve all the time. Like today, it could have gone either way at the end of the day and I think that's what's exciting for the future as well.

“We want to bounce back from these tough couple of weeks and just end the season on a high. Just give a little bit to our fans as well because they've shown a great support for the past few weeks and we obviously want to give back a little bit as well.”