Arsenal captain Kim Little says Women’s Conti Cup Final win “could drive Gunners forward” by Michelle
Last time out we saw Arsenal crash out in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup last Sunday, our Gunners now have the chance to exact revenge on their London rivals, with the two sides meeting again in the Conti Cup Final on Sunday at Selhurst Park. Tickets for the event have sold out but you can watch all the action live on BBC1, iPlayer or the FAPlayer.
Arsenal are the most successful club in the competition’s history, having won the trophy on five previous occasions, though they haven’t picked up the prize since 2028.. Arsenal captain Kim Little has been a part of four of those victories and the midfielder is confident another win this weekend could represent a real turning point in the club’s campaign.
“Within football, you have different moments in a season,” Little told football.london. “Sometimes you have negative moments which spur you on but sometimes you have positive moments like we did five years ago in the Conti Cup which drove us on to win the league.
“I think because we haven’t had a moment like that since we won the league, as a club we’re trying to do all the right things to move us forward across the board and you can feel that within the club. I think a moment like that of us being successful could be a catalyst to then drive us forward.”
Despite Arsenal’s successful record in the Conti Cup, Chelsea go into Sunday’s Cup Final clash as the favorites, not Arsenal, after failing to beat Chelsea in their last five attempts, as well as losing the 2021 and 2018 FA Cup Finals and the 2020 Conti Cup Final to the Blues..
Chelsea have been dominant in the women’s game in recent years, securing doubles or trebles over their last few seasons, but Little insists Arsenal have no inferiority complex when it comes to facing the Blues.
“Chelsea have been dominant the last number of years and we haven’t picked up a trophy and that’s not without the will,” the 32-year-old said. “We obviously want that as players and as a club and we need to continue to aim for that and keep taking the right steps to get back to that position.
“That’s obviously the place Chelsea are in now but we believe we’ve got a very capable squad of high-quality players and when we’re at the top of our game, we can compete and win those trophies.”
With Selhurst Park sold out for tomorrow’s League Cup Final, Little believes this massive increase in demand is a testament to how far the women’s game has come in recent years.
“It just shows the growth of the game,” she said. “The League Cup Final is obviously played earlier in the season and it didn’t have the same status as the FA Cup of those kinds of fixtures in terms of those attendances.
“There were maybe a few thousand there and we’re now playing at Selhurst Park; a great stadium with thousands of people there. There are more and more of these special occasions in the women’s game, so I’m looking forward to another one of those games.”
Let’s hope that Kim Little can captain our ‘underdogs’ to Cup Final victory tomorrow – it’s about time that our Gunners bagged some silverware again.. What do you think our chances are?
Michelle Maxwell
CONTI CUP OR BUST!
Our very own Michelle joins up with Lotte and Martin from Dublin Arsenal to review last weeks defeat to Chelsea and The Arsenal’s Women’s chances of getting revenge this weekend in the Conti Cup Final…
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