After falling to an early exit in the FA Womens Cup to lower league West Ham Utd on Sunday, Bristol now only have retaining their Premier League status to focus on for the remainder of the season. It was the first time the Hammers have knocked out National Division opponents. Two first half headers from Nina Downham gave them the advantage and they were able to withstand a late barrage from Bristol to claim their passage into the fifth round, where they will host Barnet. After the game manager Mark Sampson was critical of 'unacceptable' Bristol.
 
"West Ham started the game much better than we did and we found ourselves 2-0 down, we got one back and made a game of it in the second half but the team who showed more determination, fought harder for each other and wanted to win more on the day deservedly went through and we got exactly what our performance deserved.
 
"We win as a team and we lose as a team, and today the performance was extremely poor, in the second half the effort was there but we didn’t play for each other, we didn’t play as a team. Too many of us were trying to do our own thing, if you’re not prepared to work as a team and do the basics of the game and work extremely hard to get on the ball and express yourself then you're going to lose football matches and that is what happened today, particularly in the first half.
 
"It’s about doing your job and working as a team but that is what we failed to do today, too many individuals not fighting for the team or trying to do things for themselves and not for the team. Football is a team effort and when you play as individuals with such a naive and selfish performance it is unacceptable and we have to put that right.
 
"We have been in this position before suffering a bad defeat and we need people who are strong enough to dust themselves down learn from our mistakes and put things right. We need people in our dressing room that put the team before themselves and give everything for the team, and if we don’t have these types of characters in the dressing room then we need to find some."