Europe works wonders for Everton

Last-gasp defeats
Given a place in the competition as FA Women's Premier League runners-up thanks to champions Arsenal LFC's UEFA Women's Cup victory, Everton stormed through the first qualifying round with three wins and 20 unanswered goals, but like their male counterparts in the UEFA Cup they were pipped to a European quarter-final. In the case of Mo Marley's team, they suffered last-gasp 2-1 defeats by FCL Rapide Wezemaal and 1. FFC Frankfurt and those teams' 1-1 draw meant Everton's 3-1 defeat of Valur Reykjavík was in vain.

League Cup win
Since then they have suffered just one top-flight reverse, 2-0 to Arsenal in December, and they gained revenge last month with a memorable 1-0 defeat of the Gunners in the League Cup final to end Arsenal's two-year unbeaten domestic run, and are the only team to retain realistic hopes of catching the champions in the title race. England and Everton midfielder Jill Scott believes that playing in Europe aided them to that victory.

Team spirit
"Playing against the top teams in Europe definitely helped us on the pitch and also off it," Scott said. "Because we were spending a couple of weeks away and getting on a lot better. That's what showed [against Arsenal], great team spirit. We feel we were a bit unlucky in Europe not to qualify from the second round but we learned from our mistakes and we've used that in the league and the cups."

'Held our own'
Marley, whose team were only denied an FA Women's Cup final against Arsenal by a penalty shoot-out defeat by Leeds United LFC last weekend, agrees. "When you've got your players for a long period of time, that instilled the whole team bonding," she said. "We were actually quite naïve in Europe to be honest but then we did compete against the best teams in Europe, as in Frankfurt, and we held our own against them."