Sunderland Ladies' head coach Carlton Fairweather was delighted with his team on Saturday as they thumped league leaders Chelsea 4-0 at the Hetton Centre.
The Chelsea demolition
A Beth Mead hat-trick and a stunning strike from Abby Holmes means Sunderland have kicked off the second half of the season with back-to-back victories, and they now sit second in the WSL 1 table, just two points behind Chelsea.
Despite Mead being the star with three of the four goals, speaking to the Lady Black Cats' offical website, Fairweather was keen to praise the whole team's efforts and not just the striker's, giving "all credit to the team" as "they all played well." Still, he did single out hat-trick hero Mead, saying her "finishing, which was excellent, helped [the team]." He went on to add that he's "happy for Beth and...happy for the team."
Overall progression
It's been quite a year for the Sunderland Ladies team and it's perhaps wrong to be surprised about how well they are doing in the women's top flight, bearing in mind they should have been playing at this level a long time ago following their three succesive Premier League titles and WSL 2 win last season.
Coach Fairweather puts their constant recent success down to fantastic team spirit within the squad, telling the media that their acheivements have come from "hard work and togetherness." He said that "the girls, as a group are fantastic" and that they "[work] for one another." As for keeping up these levels of performance, the manager believes that "it's just a case of continuing to [work for one another] and see where that takes [the team]."
What the future holds
As things stand right now, this talk of team spirit is going to take them to a possible league title and European football in the near future along with some of the team challenging for places in various national squads. Ultimately though, the focus is short term and the next game for Sunderland, which is a local derby away to Durham Women on Wednesday in the Continential Cup.