FA Women’s Cup 2016 Semi Final Draw

The draw for the FA Women’s Cup has been made and fans of the teams involved now know who their opponents will be in the semi -finals. Chelsea are at home to Manchester City and Arsenal will host Sunderland.
The Chelsea versus City match will be a repeat of last season’s semi-final tie which Chelsea won 1-0. But a lot has changed in the year since that game and City will be keen to get revenge.
Both clubs have brought in new players in the meantime, but City also still have a core number of players that were part of England’s successful World Cup squad. And that campaign had such a positive and motivating effect on the players that it transformed the club and took them on a record-breaking thirteen- game unbeaten run in league and cups in 2015.
Both teams have started this season in fine form and I think it’s fair to say that fans of Chelsea and Manchester City would have preferred to avoid each other until the final as they are both the teams- to-beat at the moment and the prospect of two teams with 100% records going head to head at Wembley would have been a mouth-watering prospect. But that’s not to be and they will have to settle for a semi-final instead.
This will be a difficult match for City as Chelsea are at home and they have some excellent players. But they are not unbeatable and they will still be bitterly disappointed to go out of the Champions League at such an early stage.
City are also playing well, but there is still room for improvement. They are delighted to have not conceded any goals so far this season in the FA WSL and in the FA Cup, but there have been one or two near misses, so they won’t be complacent. They will also look to improve their finishing as they haven’t scored many goals in proportion to the chances created – a problem which was evident in the last round against third division minnows Sporting Club Albion.
City fans also understand how important it is these days to rotate the team in order to keep players fresh and to give the side other options, so they will be hoping for a sign that one or two key players will return from injury in time for this match.
In the other semi-final, Arsenal take on Sunderland. Arsenal have some exceptional individual players and must be favourites playing at home. But recent form is not too encouraging and they only just scrapped through the last round against Notts County, so Sunderland will fancy their chances of causing an upset.