JOE Montemurro was delighted with his Arsenal players passing the sternest of tests as Louise Quinn’s injury-time header downed Everton and secured the Gunners a place in the SSE Women’s FA Cup final.

Having beaten much-fancied Manchester City to lift the Continental Tyres Cup last month, Montemurro’s side are gunning for a record 15th Women’s FA Cup title and will face Chelsea at Wembley on May 5, Fran Kirby’s double the difference in their 2-0 win over City in the other semi-final.

Danielle Carter’s close-range effort gave Arsenal the lead at Marine FC before the Toffees levelled through a Chloe Kelly penalty midway through the second period.

But Quinn nodded home a Jordan Nobbs corner late on to secure a victory which left Australian Montemurro beaming.

“I’m very proud - we’ve had a bit of adversity with a few players coming back from international duty as well as having one or two players fatigued,” said the manager.

“It’s a tight pitch so you’re going to get closed down very quickly and we expected we wouldn’t have much time on the ball.

“Everton are a very good side and very well organised. In the end I think the chances we created proved the difference.

“The FA Cup is one of the best tournaments in the world – it will be honour to lead a team at Wembley and we’ll do whatever we can to win that game.

“We continued to play even under pressure. It was difficult – obviously the spaces weren’t always there because it’s a smaller ground but we continued with our style.”

Sunday’s triumph continues the north Londoners’ resurgence under the Australian, who took the reins in November after Pedro Martinez Losa’s three-year spell in charge came to an end.

Goalscorer Carter believes it is not down to chance that Montemurro’s arrival has sparked a revival of fortunes following a mixed start to the campaign.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence – Joe’s come in and put his ideas across to us and we just tried to implement them in every game and we have,” said the 24-year-old striker, who has also scored six goals in four games for England.

“Unfortunately, Joe came in mid-season – if he’d have been with us at the start of the season then who knows where we’d be?

“It’s no secret that Arsenal are the most successful women’s side in history in England – we’re not top of the table as it stands in the league but we’re still Arsenal, we’re still a team to fear.

“But we’ve clawed ourselves back into the running [in the league], we’re not out of it yet and we’ll take each game as it comes.

“We love finals, we love winning trophies and 100 per cent we’re going to go to Wembley and try and win.” 

Tickets are now on sale for the SSE Women’s FA Cup Final on Saturday 5th May at Wembley Stadium connected by EE. For more information about tickets and SSE’s involvement in women’s football visit www.sponsorship.sse.com.