Women’s FA Cup winner Rachel Williams should go down “as a Manchester United icon”, according to manager Marc Skinner.
Williams supplied the second goal in the 4-0 thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur in the Women's FA Cup final on Sunday. The triumph marked United's first major honour since the club's reformation in 2018 after the women's team was disbanded by the club in 2005.
However, eyebrows were raised when the veteran's name graced the team sheet's starting XI at the expense of the in-form Nikita Parris. Williams knows the territory of the FA Cup final, having triumphed 12 years earlier with Birmingham City. The victory marked the last FA Cup final not won by one of Manchester City, Chelsea or Arsenal until this year, with none of the three reaching the finale.
On that day, Williams, 36, was on the scoresheet for the Blues as they made history. And appropriately, the striker found the back of the net once again in a moment of triumph under the Wembley arches, this time for United.
Even so, United's signing of Williams, a plasterer in a former life, at the start of the 2022/23 season was not met with extensive fanfare, who viewed the club's recruitment of a 34-year-old as counterintuitive to claims of ambition to compete with the Women's Super League's upper echelons.
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And Skinner, who coached Williams for two seasons while managing Birmingham City, believes the lacklustre trumpet calls upon Williams' arrival only makes her status as a club icon all the more worthy.
"Do you remember all that rubbish that we got when we signed her? Well, she’s turned that around, hasn’t she?" quipped Skinner in his post-match press.
"Rachel [Williams] is a fantastic character. I wanted to start the game fast. I wanted to make sure that Tottenham couldn’t get rhythm because once Tottenham start playing they’re a good team and Rachel would chase them, put her body on the line for everything.
Rachel Williams celebrates winning the FA Cup final (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)"She should’ve scored in the first half if we’re being critical but she deserves every part of that, she’s a fantastic footballer and more importantly a fantastic human and I hope she goes down as an iconic player for Manchester United. The FA Cup has now got the history like the men’s: the plasterer scores the winner."
In Williams' two seasons with United, she has come to burnish a reputation as a super sub, popping up when United need her most, often arriving from the bench and instilling a dash of experience amidst chaos. It was Williams' late winner in the 3-2 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion in last season's FA Cup semi-finals that booked the team their first-ever ticket to Wembley. By November at the start of this season, Williams had racked up four goals, none of which arrived before the 77-minute mark.
Given the nod against Tottenham, Williams impressed, doing well to hold-up the ball and harry Spurs' backline with her fellow forwards Garcia and Leah Galton. While the forward did spurn a brilliant chance to put United ahead early in the first-half as her headed bounced just left of the Becky Spencer's goal, the forward made no mistake as she met Katie Zelem's cross in the second-half.
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