Gavin Levey was pleased with the outcome but wanted more from Aberdeen Women’s performance in their 2-0 fourth round win against Hutchison Vale in the Scottish Cup.
Aberdeen took control against the SWF Championship outfit, but it was a frustrating opening half at Balmoral Stadium as the Dons created very little with the lion’s share of possession.
They went into the break ahead with Bayley Hutchison scoring her fourth goal of the season ten minutes before half-time.
The second half was very similar to the first but Mya Christie doubled the Dons’ advantage in the 71st minute with a nice finish from inside the box, after being played through by Hannah Stewart.
Interim head coach Levey was happy to achieve their main objective – progressing to the next round – but admitted the performance wasn’t up to the standard he expects from the squad.
He said: “We had a job to do coming into the competition in the fourth round, and we’ve done that – so we’re happy outcome-wise.
“But performance-wise it should’ve been a lot better, especially in the final third.
“The conditions were difficult today. Hutchison Vale made it tough for us to get into a rhythm, they were physical and competed well – they turned it into a real cup tie.
“We did better in the second half and created more, but it was still not where we wanted it to be. You can have all the possession in the world but if you’re not ruthless, then it’s just wasteful.
“We’re not going away from this thinking it’s entirely job done – we got what we wanted but we will go to back to training on Tuesday and make improvements for the league at the weekend.”
An underwhelming Dons performance
It was a slow start at Balmoral Stadium, and although Aberdeen dominated possession, they were struggling to create much, with the first real chance being a near own goal after a Hutchison Vale defender cleared the ball towards her own net.
Bailley Collins and Nadine Hanssen registered two decent attempts for the Dons within the first half an hour, before, at the other end, Aberdeen switched off and gifted an attempt to Hutchison Vale’s Gabrielle Anderson.
But Aberdeen found the opener as in the 36th minute when skipper Loren Campbell sliced the ball across the face of goal, and found Hutchison, who tapped home at the back post.
Hannah Stewart went close to doubling Aberdeen’s lead mere minutes later, as she drove into the final third and beat two Hutchie defenders before unleashing a strike that goalkeeper Nadine Millar did well to save.
After a flat first half at Balmoral Stadium, Levey made one change at half-time as Chloe Gover replaced Natasha Bruce in the middle of the park.
There was a glimpse of what the Dons are capable of as Hutchison linked-up well with Stewart, but the latter’s shot was hit well wide of the post, before Christie made it 2-0 in the 71st minute.
Preparing for a return to SWPL 1 action
Following the Scottish Cup win, Aberdeen are now unbeaten in their last three games across all competitions, ahead of their first league game of 2023 against Hamilton Accies.
Levey said: “We’re looking forward to the game and just want to build on what we’ve done since we’ve come in, and how we have performed in the last two games.
“The Scottish Cup was our first game in over a month, so we were a bit rusty, but we’ll go train well this week ahead of what will be a very different game against Hamilton.
“It should be a game that will suit us better, but we’re glad we had the cup game because we’ll take our learnings from it and go back to work this week to improve on them before the weekend.”
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