Rachel Williams on historic win at City: 'Everyone gave everything'
Tue 14 September 2021, 19:19|
Tottenham Hotspur
Goalscorer Rachel Williams praised her team-mates for sticking to the game plan after Spurs Women secured a memorable victory at Manchester City on Sunday.
Trailing to Lauren Hemp’s early opener at the City Academy Stadium, we fashioned a second-half equaliser through Rachel before turning the game on its head in slightly unorthodox circumstances with four minutes left, Angela Addison’s cross taking a deflection in the box, hitting the post and squirming in off goalkeeper Karima Benameur Taieb.
Regardless, it was one of our most significant results since earning promotion to the Barclays FA Women’s Super League and our first-ever win over one of the league’s established title challengers – something that forward Rachel was delighted with.
“We grafted, we had a game plan and we stuck to it,” she explained. “We're realistic – City are a good team so why play to their strengths and let them go through you or pop it around you? We compacted the middle, pushed them around the edges and everyone stuck to everything that we'd said so for me, the way we played, everyone gave everything. The support from the sidelines from the staff, players – even the subs who didn't get on – it was everything and I'm really proud of the girls. We wanted to get something out of this game and we've done that.”
It was pointed out to Rachel that her goal was her first in the WSL since 2018 when she was playing for Birmingham City.
“I've had a few injuries along the way, I'm getting a bit older now and I had a few messages from people laughing and saying that I'm a veteran!” she smiled. “But credit to the staff, they've stuck by me, Rehanne just keeps saying that the fitter we are, the better we are. The ball went out to Kit (Graham) and I thought ‘here’s one of those runs.’ Luckily all night the ball had been skipping through because the grass was wet and I just thought ‘composure’ and just side-footed it.”
Sunday’s result means we’ve won our first two women’s top-flight games for the first time and we head into the international break in buoyant mood. Nevertheless, Rachel says it’s important to keep our feet on the ground.
“We had a tough start last season, we’ve looked at this season and we need to take what we did last year – the second half of the season especially – into this year but we're not going to get carried away,” she said. “Yes, we won on Sunday but now we’re back to training and preparing for the next game which is Reading at home after the international break. We'll work on them, take every game as it is and we'll keep going. The staff believe in us, the girls believe in each other and there's a nice vibe around the group. I'm excited to see what’s to come so I hope everyone else is going to be too.”
