ColumnAmber Whiteley on FA Cup pride, Brighton clash and Ceri Holland latest

I had nothing but pride in the players last weekend after a narrow defeat against Chelsea in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup semi-final.

The team executed the game plan really well, particularly in the first half. Overall, we weren’t far off and we took Chelsea all the way and nearly forced extra-time. It was a really strong performance.

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They gave it absolutely everything for the shirt and the fans, and they did themselves proud.

We definitely had a bit of a momentum shift when we changed the shape and had that last-minute opportunity when Taylor [Hinds] was so unlucky when she hit the bar. It was so close.

It’s small margins when you play against a top team like Chelsea and we just didn’t have quite enough in the end. But there are so many positives we can take into our remaining four games.

Olivia Smith scored a brilliant goal, a great team move. For me, that’s one of the best team goals we’ve scored all season, certainly the best one we’ve scored since I’ve been in charge.

I thought we were well-organised and defended really well from start to finish and made it very difficult for Chelsea to break us down.

That is what I expect from us every week, regardless of the opponent. Nobody should ever take anything from us without a fight.

If we can take that mentality into each of our four remaining games we’ve got left this season then we should see a strong end to our campaign.

Even though the players were devastated, they are all in good spirits and we have had a good week of training.

We have taken so many positives from that game. Chelsea are world-class and we have gone toe-to-toe with them.

We take huge confidence from that game, the Anfield win over Manchester United and the FA Cup win at Arsenal. It’s not just a one-off against a top side and we are really building and working towards something, so it’s just going to take a little bit of time.

We are back in Barclays Women’s Super League action on Saturday when we travel to face Brighton & Hove Albion (kick-off 12.30pm at Amex Stadium).

We are looking forward to it and it will be good to get back into league action. Brighton are just above us in the table and we hope to change that on Saturday.

We played well when we beat Brighton at St Helens Stadium, so we will be looking to take the learnings from that game into this weekend. It’s about improving now week on week and taking all the positives from that Chelsea performance.

We want to keep getting better and finish this season as strongly as possible.

Hopefully we might have Ceri Holland available on Saturday but we will have to see how she comes through training on Friday. She has been back in part-training, so we’ll see how she gets on.

Finally, I want to say a big thank you to our brilliant supporters. You were absolutely fantastic at Kingsmeadow, we could hear you all game and you sang your hearts out. We hope we did you proud.

YNWA,

Amber

Amber Whiteley was speaking to Liverpoolfc.com's Steve Hunter