Women's football: Gilly Flaherty wants more from Chelsea Ladies against Manchester City

Gilly Flaherty thinks her Chelsea Ladies team-mates will have to improve on their performance at Arsenal on Thursday if they are to beat Manchester City and reach the Continental Cup final.

Chelsea, who only registered one league victory last season, stayed top of the FA Women’s Super League after coming from behind to beat Arsenal 3-2 at Boreham Wood.

And Flaherty believes victory against the side who have won the Continental Cup for three years in succession is ideal preparation for the semi-final clash with City at Hyde FC on Sunday.

“We’ll take the positives out of the performance but we’ll look to improve because I don’t think performance-wise it was good enough from all of us individually,” Flaherty told Sky Sports after the game.

“I wasn’t terribly happy with how I played, so we’ll go away and we’ll review it but we all know that we’re going to have to pick it up if we are going to win on Sunday.

“I think our game against Arsenal was not only great preparation but also a great advert for women’s football.

“It was intense for the players, the coaches and the fans. It was back and forth, but you can’t get better preparation for Sunday than playing against a team like Arsenal.”

Flaherty added: “We’ve had some recovery time and some light training and we know this game is massive.

“I said when I came to Chelsea I wanted to win something. I’m a winner and I want to be in the final of the Continental Cup this season.

“It’s another final we’ll all be trying our trying our best to get into.”