Having returned from a difficult Champions League outing in Madrid in the early hours on Friday morning and with Arsenal having won earlier in the day on Sunday, the eventual 3-2 victory over Reading was an important one ahead of a break in the domestic campaign. It was in the context of the weather conditions and the preparations for the match that Emma Hayes placed the performance as she looked back on the three points won.

‘The pitch was tricky, it was frozen, it was full of snow,’ our manager noted.

‘We were 3-0 up and completely comfortable and an error put Reading back in the game. It was completely unnecessary for us to make the game 3-2 but I'm not going to be too harsh on my team. We've had a big week and I saw so many good things from the team in the first half and from the players that came into the team, and I am going to focus on that.

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‘We are top of the league going into Christmas. We're on the verge of qualifying [for the knockout stage of the Champions League] if we win this week. We're in a really good position.’

Hayes had the faith in the depth of her squad to make six changes to the side from Thursday’s match against Real Madrid. She spoke about the players who came into the team in general as well as some of them individually. Two of those added to the starting line-up, Fran Kirby and Jelena Cankovic, scored the goals.

‘We've been training well and the demands we place in the training and in our environment is you have to produce that performance whether you're in the starting line-up or you're not. I want to give full credit to that team that started this game because they displayed the levels that they've been showing in training, and it was vindicating to go 3-0 up.

‘I felt we could play Jelena Cankovic and Fran Kirby as long as I put Fran in a wide space. I knew Niamh [Charles] would bomb on so it would allow Fran to get on the ball in the transitions. She had a really good first half.

‘We stopped doing it in the second half but Fran’s building her fitness back. We've got to keep gradually doing that but it was a really good performance from Fran.

‘Bethany England played really well. She linked the play. She didn't get a goal, she hasn’t had a lot of minutes and centre-forwards are always measured by their goals, but there’s no need for that to be. She contributed really well to the team.’

Another discussed by Hayes is summer-signing Eve Perisset who was the right-back in Sunday’s game. The France international has now started eight of the 14 games this season.

‘English is not her first language and challenges come with that because when you're organising and you're playing alongside someone who doesn't speak the language, that makes it tough,’ explained Hayes.

‘So she still has to keep learning the language which she's doing, which is why we're easing her into it because when you're a player playing with someone who doesn't speak your language, that makes it difficult, especially in the highest-level games.

‘But she's adjusting, she was already a good footballer but speaking the language, getting to know her team-mates, playing consistently with her team-mates, she will just get better and better as she settles in really nicely. Her set-pieces are immense.’

Hayes also had praise for the thousand-plus fans who braved the midwinter conditions to see Sunday night’s win in person.

‘I wasn't expecting them in their numbers and it is fully appreciated,’ she said before joking: ‘We wanted to make it entertaining for them in the second half!’