Women's FA Cup final: West Ham ready to shake off their underdog label against Manchester City

This time last year, West Ham Ladies were an amateur third-tier outfit, and not a particularly good one either, having finished seventh in the FA Women’s Premier League Southern Division, 31 points adrift of champions Charlton.

Tomorrow, West Ham United Women - as they are now known - compete in the Women’s FA Cup final, the fourth to be hosted at Wembley. They face Manchester City: FA Cup winners in 2017, WSL runners-up and Continental Cup winners this season, and a side chasing their sixth piece of silverware in as many years.

The Hammers are now a fully-fledged, full-time, top-flight club, having gained a Women’s Super League place when the FA issued a fresh series of licences last summer. Despite hiring a new manager and coaching staff, and building a new squad, they have negotiated their debut season in relative comfort, never looking in danger of relegation.

Nevertheless, they will very much start as underdogs, having notably lost 7-1 when the two teams met in Manchester earlier this season. Indeed, City have an all-international team, most of whom will be at this summer’s Women’s World Cup. But City manager Nick Cushing recognises complacency is a danger for his team, who are yet to lose to domestic opposition in 31 matches this season.

“We’ve all seen the cup finals where the so-called ‘underdog’ has beaten the team people perceive should win,” said Cushing, who as a boyhood Evertonian still recalls their surprise 1995 FA Cup win. “My job is to make sure this team don’t become complacent.

“We know the 7-1 wasn’t a true reflection of West Ham. This is a one-off game and anyone can win. We won’t take them for granted. I respect West Ham for the journey they’ve been on and the players they’ve got in that squad.”

Cushing is wise to be wary. West Ham have a core of experienced players themselves, a shrewd coach in Matt Beard, and they pushed City much closer in their last league meeting in London than in the reverse fixture in Manchester.

Beard, a 41-year-old Londoner, won back-to-back titles with Liverpool before heading to the US to manage Boston Breakers. When that club folded he returned to the UK and was a smart choice when West Ham looked for someone to build the new club.

Beard recruited well, signing former England internationals Claire Rafferty and Gilly Flaherty, followed by Manchester City’s Scotland striker Jane Ross. He added a cluster of promising overseas players, mainly Americans, but also Swiss Alisha Lehman, who has been excellent, and in January added Cho So-hyun, South Korea’s most capped player, and Canadian international Adriana Leon to the mix. This disparate group have gelled well.

“It is like a fairytale to get here having built this club in six weeks, and the injuries we have had,” said Beard, “but having got there we want to win it.

“It would be an unbelievable achievement. No-one is expecting us to win. It would be a remarkable end to a remarkable story.”

If City’s danger is complacency, West Ham’s is being overawed by the venue and a crowd expected to top 50,000 despite the Premier League refusing to switch the kick-off time for tomorrow’s West Ham men’s game. Beard, who took the squad to Wembley today to give them a feel of the place, added: “We’ve got to play the game and not the occasion.”

Manchester City (4-4-2): Bardsley; McManus, Houghton, Beattie, Stokes; Wullaert, Scott, Walsh, Weir; Parris, Stanway.

West Ham United (4-3-3): Moorhouse; Simon, Flaherty, Hendrix, Rafferty; Longhurst, Cho, Visalli; Leon, Ross, Lehman.