Chris Roberts has assured that Everton Women will learn from their defeat to Chelsea and was ‘proud’ of his team’s effort.

The reigning Barclays FA Women’s Super League scored three goals in the space of 22 minutes to put the game out of reach for the Blues at Walton Hall Park.

The Scot acknowledged that Everton were up against one of Europe’s best sides, and thought his squad stood up to the challenge.

“Credit to Chelsea, they are a fantastic side,” Roberts told evertontv. “They’re so well coached and have great players, so we knew it was going to be tough.

“Our girls worked incredibly hard for 90 minutes. We’re disappointed with the calibre the three goals we lost but we're immensely proud in the shift that they put in and the response in the second half.

“They stood up to one of the best teams in the world.

“What they’ve shown me and hopefully what they’ve got from that second half is immense pride and confidence to take forward into the next game.”

One of the positives to take from Wednesday’s result was the unity with the squad and a strong defensive performance in the second half. Something Roberts hopes his side can build upon on for Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City.

“We’re all disappointed with the result and we’re all disappointed with the calibre of the goals we lost and we’ll never shy away from moments like that and we’ll learn from them.

“We’ll certainly also learn from what was a real togetherness in the team and the way that we solved a lot of difficult problems on the pitch tonight against a top opponent.

“We’re not going to get carried away and talk about millions of positives, we lost the game 3-0, but there is a lot we can take from it and we’ll need to use that and build and grow into our next game against Man City on Sunday, so we’ll take all the positives we can, we’ll take all the learning we can and be better.

“The one thing we can always rely on with this group is to fight and to stick together and they’ve done that again on Wednesday night.”