Olli Harder invokes ‘West Ham spirit’ before Manchester City FA Cup clash

Olli Harder believes familiarity will offer his West Ham players invaluable reassurance as they meet renascent Manchester City for the third time this season. Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final takes place at Dagenham & Redbridge’s Chigwell Construction Stadium, where Harder’s side play their home games.

“If you’ve climbed a mountain before, the idea of doing it again becomes easier psychologically,” said Harder. “We’ve beaten City before, we know where we can hurt them and they know that as well.”

Although only a fortnight ago West Ham lost 2-0 at home to Gareth Taylor’s team in the Women’s Super League, Harder choreographed victory by the same scoreline in Manchester last October. “City are talented but there’s a lot to be optimistic about,” said the New Zealander. “We’re hoping to write a fantastic story about an underdog reaching the FA Cup final. It’s about seizing counterattacking opportunities and being more clinical than two weeks ago. If we can do that, defend for our lives and show the West Ham spirit anything’s possible.”

Tactics, talent and sheer tenacity will all play their part in determining who reaches Wembley, but emotional control also seems set to exert a key role. At the end of a week in which the Northern Ireland women’s manager, Kenny Shiels, contentiously asserted that “emotional” female footballers are susceptible to conceding several goals in swift succession, gender differences dominated conversation before the semi-final.

After his side’s 5-0 defeat by England in Belfast on Tuesday Shiels posited the thesis that “women are more emotional than men … so they don’t take a goal going in very well”. On Wednesday he apologised amid a furore, and, by Thursday, Northern Ireland’s players had issued a