Manchester United lost out on their inaugural Vitality Women’s FA Cup glory after suffering a heartbreaking loss at the hands of Chelsea. Sam Kerr scored the only goal of the game, after capitalising from a low cross just beyond the hour mark.
The Reds were arguably the better side on the day, outplaying the defending champions in the first half but started to slip in the second when Chelsea brought on reinforcements.
Skinner said: “I think we had some good chances where we’ve probably got to score them and then Sam gets her chance and scores it, her movements are excellent behind the line.
“We knew this threat was coming, it's the biggest threat they have and today we switched off for one moment and that’s what Chelsea do, they punish you.
“Our fans are the best in the country, bar none. We’re sorry we couldn't bring it home for them today but we will be back, for them.”
Skinner added: “Look at [Erin] Cuthbert and Sophie Ingle, no disrespect but when you put Ingle on, they’re not there to be the best, fancy, possession-based team, they’re there to destroy your attacks. And so you have to match physicality with physicality.
“We want to be where they were today. We were trying to find spaces, we were trying to inject some physicality into midfield to which we were winning the lower battles but the higher battles were not being won.
“The physicality is part of the game and we’ve got to inject that in recruitment.
“I'm not going to stop. This team is not going to stop. We’re not going away and these are just moments you have to win. We haven’t done that today but we gave a really good account of ourselves and we will be back, I have no doubt about that.
"I thought the girls were excellent, it's their first final as a collective. So for us to go out there and play with the maturity that we did, I cant look back and think negatively towards them. The goal is something we’d hate to see back but we’ve got to score those chances in the first half.”
United had 14 shots to Chelsea’s eight, five of which were on target. Leah Galton nudged the ball beyond Ann-Katrin Berger 20 seconds after kick-off but was ruled offside, she got another chance with a low cross half hour later, but couldn’t find the back of the net. Alessia Russo also came close as did Millie Turner’s header and then Nikita Parris was brought down in the box and denied a penalty, all in the first 45 minutes.
“Yes Manchester United had the first half, but we had the second,” concluded Chelsea manager Emma Hayes.
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