Chelsea Women take on Everton in the fifth round of the Vitality Women’s FA Cup this evening and Bethany England has highlighted the importance of ending the season on a high.
Tonight’s fixture against Everton will be our final outing of the campaign with a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals up for grabs.
Chelsea go into our fifth-round clash off the back of our Champions League final defeat and England has urged her team-mates to bounce back with a good performance against the Toffees.
She said: ‘No one wants to end the season on a loss. It was extremely disappointing moment for us on Sunday but I’m glad we’ve got this game and now we can put a performance in.
‘We really need to make sure we are on the front foot and putting them on the back foot. They aren’t going to lay down and roll over, we’ve got to put in a good performance, show what we are all about and play the Chelsea way.
‘Ending the season on a high after the season we’ve had is what we deserve, and we also want to get back to Wembley.’
Chelsea have beaten Everton twice in the league this season, but suffered a defeat against the Toffees in this competition last season and England insists the Blues won’t underestimate tonight’s opponents.
She added: ‘We’ve still got a good chance of winning another trophy and it’s important we don’t underestimate Everton. They’ve obviously sacrificed some of their summer holidays to wait to play this game, so they aren’t going to come here to get turned over easily.
‘They aren’t a team to be underestimated. They did it to us once before and we don’t want a repeat of that.
‘Everyone needs to be on our ‘A’ game, we need to make sure we give them every inch of respect they deserve and make sure we are on it.’
Tonight’s game kicks off at 7pm and is available to watch live on the BBC Red Button.