Midfielder Danielle van de Donk insists Arsenal will approach the forthcoming FA WSL Spring Series high on confidence despite their SSE Women’s FA Cup defence coming to an end.
The Gunners saw their hopes of a second successive trip to Wembley extinguished by Birmingham City in their quarter-final clash.
Dutch international van de Donk played 82 minutes of the tie, but was unable to provide the same heroics as in the previous round where she bagged a hat-trick in the 10-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.
That performance saw her picked as the SSE Women’s FA Cup Player of the fifth round but, while both van de Donk and Arsenal will no longer be able to get their hands on further silverware in that competition, the Gunners star has big plans for the rest of the season.
“We can learn a lot from it – Birmingham is always one of our difficult games,” she said.
GOAL! @ArsenalLadies are into double figures 😱#SSEWomensFACup pic.twitter.com/Xf2Cqwv1K3
— SSE Women's FA Cup (@SSEWomensFACup) March 19, 2017
“If I want to take good things out of a bad thing, I think it will be better for us ahead of the Spring Series that we have had this disappointment.
“We can grow from it and hopefully it won’t happen again.
“I hope other teams will be scared of us – we’re not scared of anyone and that’s the feeling you need to create.
“We’ve proven we can win and we just had an off day. In the Spring Series and the league later this year, we cannot afford to have another off day and that’s what we’re going to work for.
“Not every game is going to be a game where everyone is in full flow like the Tottenham win.
“I was delighted to get the player of the round for that round, although everyone was at a good level in that game.
“You have to grow together and be better every single game.”
Tickets are now on sale for The SSE Women’s FA Cup Final on Saturday 13 May at Wembley Stadium connected by EE. For the second consecutive year, kids go free to the final. Adult tickets cost £15 and can be purchased here: https://ticketing.thefa.com/
