Chelsea Ladies boss Emma Hayes blamed complacency and a lack of fight for their Women’s FA Cup final defeat – but promised she would lift the players ahead of their next league game.
The Blues were beaten by Danielle Carter’s fine 17th-minute strike and rarely threatened the Arsenal Ladies goal.
Chelsea resume their defence of the Women’s Super League campaign against Manchester City and Hayes warned them not to dwell on their Wembley defeat.
“They will be disappointed, but that’s what’s made us champions,” said Hayes.
“We will bounce back from that. I’ve got a together group that will find solutions and it’s my job to bring out the best in them even after a massive setback.
“We don’t have time to sulk, we’ve got a game on Thursday. It’s time for the players to pick themselves up.”
Hayes – who has masterminded seven wins out of seven in all competitions this season – said she had no complaints at suffering their first defeat of the 2016 campaign.
But she conceded her players may have taken their status at pre-match favourites – particularly having beaten Arsenal already this season – for granted.
“It’s not about previous histories or even recent form, it’s about showing up and putting in a performance and I thought Arsenal did that,” she said.
“Just because we were in possession of the trophy, it’s not a given [we would retain it]. We had to fight for that. And I felt at times we didn’t have as much fight as we needed.
“Sometimes that comes from being too comfortable, sometimes it comes from complacency.”
This post was last modified on 14/05/2016