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Andrée Jeglertz hailed the ‘fantastic squad’ of players at Manchester City after we reached the Adobe Women’s FA Cup semi-finals.

Our spot in the last four was earned after a 1-0 win against Birmingham City thanks to Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw’s early strike at St Andrew’s.

The Jamaican also struck the post before the break, while Yui Hasegawa and Rebecca Knaak also went close to increasing our lead late on.

But it was Shaw’s early strike which proved the difference, with our record scorer fed in behind by an excellent ball in behind by Iman Beney.

The Swiss was one of four changes made by Jeglertz, and his confidence in the ability of the entire squad paid off against a difficult opponent.

“We have a fantastic squad and so many good and great players,” our Head Coach reflected after the game.

“I have strong belief in all of them, but not all of them can play and this was a great opportunity to show my trust in Iman [Beney], Leila [Ouahabi] and Laura Coombs.

“And there are still a couple of players who are definitely deserving of more playing time, but that’s how it is and they did well today.

“I’m not surprised by that. I knew they were going to do a good game and give us the effort and performance we needed.”

City were made to work for the victory, despite controlling most of the contest in the west midlands.

Indeed, Khiara Keating had to be alert to claim some dangerous passes in behind our defence at times, and also commanded her box well when the hosts posed an aerial threat.

And while Jeglertz felt we were a little off-colour against Birmingham, he was pleased that we ultimately got the job done in the end.

He added: “The first half was good, we created a lot of scoring chances and had good patience on the ball.

“The second half becomes a little back and forward, they feel they have a possibility and press us a little bit higher.

“We lose the ball when we try to play over and we don’t manage that really good, but on the other hand I don’t think they had any scoring chances in the whole game, so we are pleased with the result.

“We can do the second half better, but in general and most importantly it was to come here and win and head into the semi-finals.”