- Chelsea defeated LCFC Women 7-0 in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup Fifth Round on Saturday
- Leicester were reduced to 10 players when Sophie Howard was sent off on 17 minutes
- Lydia Bedford gave her post-match reaction to LCFC TV at Kingsmeadow
- She pointed to the red card as the game’s big turning point after a good start
The Foxes were on top in the first quarter of an hour at Kingsmeadow but did not convert their opportunities and, once Sophie Howard was shown a straight red card, the Blues took full advantage of their extra player, eventually winning 7-0.
Pernille Harder scored twice before the break, while Sam Kerr did the same in the second half, with Ji So-Yun, Aniek Nouwen and Bethany England adding their names to the scoresheet late on.
City’s manager was, however, proud of the way the team performed in the opening exchanges, showing they could compete with the cup holders and current Barclays FA Women’s Super League champions.
“That moment changed the game completely today,” she expressed to LCFC TV post-match on Saturday afternoon. “I’m really proud of how the girls started the game. I think they can be really proud of that first 17 minutes.
“We asked the girls to start the game with tempo and energy, which they’d done in previous weeks. They started the game really brightly and created some key opportunities in the first 15 minutes, so I'm really pleased with how they started.
“Unfortunately, big decisions like that change games and that’s what happened for us today. But you saw in the first 15 minutes today that it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, if we get our strategy right, we can cause problems, so it’s important that we focus on that and take it into the next few games.”
Bedford stressed that the focus is now all about looking ahead to facing Manchester United at Leigh Sports Village in the Women’s Super League next Saturday (12pm GMT kick-off), rather than dwelling on a heavy defeat.
“We’ll write off the rest of today’s game and go straight away to focusing on the league,” the former England Women youth international coach added.
“There were a few critical moments in the game which have had an impact on the result, but I think all we want to focus on now is getting ourselves ready for Man Utd next week and that’s the most important thing.
“The beauty of football is that you’ve got another game in seven days’ time, which is really important to us. So, I just said to them that it’s completely written off, we forget about it and we move on, on Tuesday, and be ready to go again for United.”