Marc Skinner urges players to show ‘personality’ as Manchester United Women take on Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final | OneFootball

Manchester United Women’s manager, Marc Skinner, has said he wants his team to show “an abundance of personality” as his team hopes to beat Chelsea in the semi-final of the FA Cup on Sunday.

United are hoping to go one better than last season when they made it to the final but were beaten 1-0 by Sunday’s opponents.

Chelsea suffered defeat in their last game as Arsenal beat them 1-0 in the final of the Conti Cup, ending their hopes of a quadruple. However, Skinner suggested that this would only fuel his opponents.

Skinner said: “Chelsea is probably the toughest challenge within football, especially in England. I think they have proven before that a setback isn’t something that necessarily bothers them. They try to obviously win the next game.

“We’ve got to sacrifice and suffer without the ball but, when we get it, we’ve got to show an abundance of personality. If we can do that, I have no doubt we can beat any team, let alone a team that’s as good as Chelsea.”

After the club hosted their first player-fan press conference today for the women’s side, Skinner called on the loyal and loud supporters to get behind his team.

“We have to use our fans, and our fans have to be with us from minute one to wherever. It could be extra-time and penalties. They need to be with us throughout all of it, but all of us are going to have to sacrifice to be successful because this is the hardest team to play against.”

One ex-red who has come back to haunt his side on many an occasion is Lauren James who scored a hattrick the last time the two sides met.

“Having watched Lauren James, she’s a fantastic player, but Chelsea have a lot of those. So you could prepare for her and then somebody else will pop up. But we also have those players. We have game-changing players and players that can win games.”

He continued: “From our perspective, I think, when we go into duels with James, you have to be strong, you have to read what she’s going to try to do, which is very difficult.”

Skinner has been in the news a lot lately as speculation surrounding his future at Manchester United grows.

“I’m at a club that not only do I love the history of it, I love what’s going to come in the future. It’s it’s a club that has fantastic fans, like incredible fans. Of course, I want to stay.”

Skinner confirmed the good news that there are no new injuries to report after his squad returned from the international break.

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