Spacey-Cale branded her side’s performance as a “testament to how hard Saints are working,” despite losing narrowly in a 1-0 defeat to Bristol City.

The home side were beaten by Ffion Morgan’s wondergoal in front of a bumper crowd at St Mary’s on Women’s Football Weekend - but the Saints women’s manager was impressed with how her team dominated the game.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Spacey-Cale praised her team’s mentality despite trailing for most of the game, saying: “It just shows to the girls that even when going a goal down, they have that energy and belief that we can get back into the game.

“You could see it across the pitch, little moments in the game when there were little through balls that made us think we can do this. I think everything that they did today was a testament to how hard they [Saints] are working on the training pitch, and how well they want to perform for this club.”

After failing to score against Bristol, Saints have now gone four games without netting a goal.

Spacey-Cale is still not worried by the problem though, saying: “I think the positives are still outweighing the negatives, but we still need to put the ball in the net because that’s what wins you points and games.

“It was probably our best performance of the season, both with the ball and without the ball. I know we keep saying this season is about learning, but we are so far ahead now compared to where we were at the start of the season. There’s still work to do, and we’re never really satisfied.”

Saints were cheered on by a crowd of 5042 sat in the Itchen stand - almost double the attendance from last week’s game against Durham, and 784 higher than the 4,258 who watched against Reading in November’s international break.

Spacey-Cale had nothing but love for the home fans, and she stressed the impact they have on her side, saying: “It was amazing today. Thank you to everyone who came in today and had the drums, or the flappers, and thank you for just going.

“It was so noisy and so loud, and so important to the players. But it’s also important for the staff too, because we can only drive so much energy from the bench, so when the crowd are driving the energy as well it’s like we’ve got another player on the pitch.”