Portsmouth Women eye more cup success as they look to bounce back from Oxford defeat

The Blues were beaten 2-1 on Sunday in the National League southern premier division clash. It ended their four-match winning run.

But they have the perfect opportunity to bounce back quickly against Horndean Ladies in the Portsmouth Divisional Football Association Cup final at the PMC Stadium (7.30pm).

Katie James continued her good form on Sunday with another free-kick goal for the Blues in the second half that got them level after the hosts had opened the scoring with a Georgia Timms strike.

But Emily Allen had the final say right at the end of the game for Oxford.

Manager Jay Sadler felt the performance wasn’t quite what he was looking for from the team against Oxford, especially in the first half.

He said: ‘It’s obviously a difficult one to take, especially with the timing of the goal conceded at the end.

‘I didn’t think we started well. We allowed them too much time on the ball, we allowed them to switch the play and get the two versus ones in the wide areas which we knew was going to hurt us but they didn’t really have anything in the final third in that first half. Both teams really cancelled each other out but they probably had the better of the possession.

‘In the second half we looked to come out a little bit stronger, a little bit quicker and a little bit better. We tweaked a few things in the system.

‘We looked a different animal all together but that point we had to chase the game being 1-0 down.

‘It was a hard one to take with the penalty (for Oxford’s opening goal). We bounced back with a great goal, kept the ball well and we had our chances to maybe get a win from it. Then at the end we switched off, didn’t concentrate and we got penalised for it.’

The Horndean match on Wednesday will see Pompey looking to add to their Hampshire FA Challenge Cup trophy already in the cabinet.

Sadler added: ‘We’ve got to recover correctly. It’s going to be difficult.

‘We will get ourselves prepared for another cup final and hopefully bring that back.’