AFC Women manager was Scott Booth was pleased with aspects of his sides performance that saw them into the 3rd round of Sky Sports Cup.

“We still know we can play so much better. The first half, I felt we were really slack in possession. First half, obviously, playing against the wind, we didn’t really deal with it particularly well. Playing against the wind, I think at times we didn’t know whether to run with the ball or just kind of get it over the top of them or pass it, and then a lot of our passes went astray in the first half.

“We’ve worked a lot this week on forward motion, forward play, getting turned, playing balls in behind them, and I think when you play against the wind, that can work, because you can put the ball right in behind them and it holds up, but we didn’t really do that at all in the first half. So that was a part of our training and tactics that we didn’t really utilise.

“It was good to get Kerry back in, she just gives you a little bit more of that forward thinking. If she’s in and around the box, she’s a great finisher, and as we saw with her goal. But the thing for me was, I just felt like I had to inject something else into the game in the second half.

“We’ve worked with Aimee this week up top, and she’s proved that she can play there. So we kind of gave her a striker’s role almost.

“But that’s why we’ve got the subs that we have, we can make choices. And we still had some on the bench that didn’t get on today, so I think it did give us a better second half. Then we went to a 4-2-4 system, which again, I think, gave us more joy, pinned them a bit more, pushed them back a little bit more.

“To be honest, I’ve been thinking about playing Aimee up there for a number of weeks now. Just in training she’s popped up with some good positive play around the penalty box and finishes, and she can strike the ball really well with both her left and right. She’s fit and athletic, and also heads the ball. So all that stuff adds up, and of course she comes on and scores today.

“I was delighted for her because of the way that she’s been in terms of when I’ve had the conversation with her about playing up top, she’s completely on board with it.

“Hopefully we can get a good draw. It’s a nice distraction from the weekly league games, which are the toughest mentally.

“Next Sunday is a big game for us. There are certain games that are always a challenge to win, but they’re still big games. And then there are games that we have to take points from, that’s just the way this league is set up, this is one of them.

“It sets up a tasty game.”