Birmingham City boss Carla Ward feels her side will ‘bounce back strong’ from their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Everton.

The Blues were resoundingly beaten 3-0 by the Toffees as their chances of progressing to Wembley Stadium ended in disappointment.

And while Ward is undoubtedly rueing the missed opportunity, she also remains extremely proud of her players.

"We are disappointed and frustrated. There were a few words at half-time, I thought the reaction from the team was pretty good, the second goal was a bit of sucker punch," she told the club website.

"With the size of the squad we have and how far we have come in the past few weeks, we have to reflect on it and take the positives.

"We all knew it was not good enough in the first half, not any part of it, but even towards the end you could see that motivation to try to keep going. It is that attitude we want right now, for them to leave everything out there, and we saw that.

“There is so much to work on. This group is hungry to get better and will be more disappointed than I am because they are hard on themselves in terms of what they expect from themselves and each other.

“They will come back stronger; in the long run this will probably make us better and it will certainly make us more tight knit as a group.

“I told them they could be disappointed tonight but to wake up tomorrow and want to get better again, to go and pick the bones out of everything they have done and analyse every bit of their performances. We have to stick together and kick on."

Birmingham will now concentrate on trying to pick up their first points of the Women’s Super League campaign after successive defeats to Brighton and Manchester United.

But it does not get any easier for Ward’s side as they host WSL champions Chelsea on Saturday afternoon.