City will use cup final hurt as motivation in Scottish Cup defence

Glasgow City head coach Eileen Gleeson says the team are motivated to make a successful defence of the Scottish Cup and will use their League Cup disappointment as an extra spur to victory.

City begin their defence of the trophy at home to Queen’s Park in the third round on Sunday, hoping to go on to win the competition for the tenth time.

“Glasgow City have a rich history in this cup,” Gleeson told STV. “We’re current champions and there’s no doubt that we want to win it again.

“We’re really looking forward to getting the competition started against Queen’s Park on Sunday.”

The team go into the match against their second division opponents in good league form, having won their last six SWPL1 matches, but suffered a blow just over a month ago when they lost the League Cup final 1-0 to Celtic at Firhill.

That defeat, the only domestic loss of the season, is something that can help focus the players on going all the way again in the Scottish Cup, according to the head coach.

“That’s what we said on the day,” Gleeson said. “We make no excuses and Celtic deserved to win. It wasn’t up to the levels we wanted it to be and we never really got going in the game.

“We felt the hurt and disappointment but when we stepped back we had to reflect on it from a practical point of view and analyse it in terms of the football and the context of the game.

“We won’t be too emotional about it, just analyse what didn’t work well and what did work well and where we can improve.

“We didn’t forget the disappointment and we definitely didn’t like losing and we’ll be using that to spur everybody on.”