Kirk Praise For Everton Women's Winning Mentality

Willie Kirk praised his Everton side’s winning mentality after continuing their strong start to the FA WSL season with a 2-0 victory over his former club Bristol City Women.

Chloe Kelly’s first-half double saw the hosts claim back-to-back wins, having beaten Birmingham City Women 1-0 in their opening match last weekend, and Kirk pinpointed his players' improved mental toughness for their impressive start to the campaign.

Kirk said: “Getting that winning mentality is so important. In pre-season we stressed to the players to be passionate about the performance but still win and we went on to win six of our seven pre-season matches. I think that is a habit we’ve picked up which has helped us in winning our opening two league matches.

“It’s not a bad thing to have, that mentality of going onto the pitch and expecting to win.

“To get two clean sheets and two victories is obviously the perfect start for us. The performance last week could have been improved but the performance today was much better.”

The Everton manager made a raft of new signings this summer - including Netherlands and Finland internationals Kika van Es and Tinja-Riikka Korpela, Scotland's Lucy Graham, France's Maeva Clemaron, England youth international Molly Pike, and Esme Morgan on loan from Manchester City – and credited the new additions for helping create this improved mentality and winning start to the season.

Kirk added: “The players we’ve signed have come in, settled very quickly and showed the reasons why we signed them - but everyone has stepped up.

“We were really impressive with the ball today, we had a spell in the first half where we were excellent and then controlled the game very well in the second half. We’ve signed a lot of players who are comfortable on the ball and are tactically astute and that showed against Bristol today.”

Everton will be looking to extend their winning start to the season when they travel to face Birmingham City Women next Sunday in the Continental Cup.

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03:18

KIRK ON BRISTOL WIN AND KELLY'S 'INCREDIBLE' POTENTIAL

Everton boss reflects on his side's second successive WSL win.