The Watford Women’s head coach has his sights firmly set on silverware after watching his side convincingly beat MK Dons 5-1 to move into the semi-finals of the FA Women’s National League Cup.

In their first game at Grosvenor Vale in almost two months, Damon Lathrope watched on as goals from Bianca Baptiste, a Helen Ward brace, Ellie Head and Annie Rossiter set up a last-four date with either Wolverhampton Wanderers or Huddersfield Town at the home of Wealdstone FC.

Lathrope's target is clear and he told the club website: “We want to win it, we’re not shying away from that. We want silverware this year, and we’ve made that very clear amongst the group.

“It’s really good to be back here, it’s been a long time since we played here and we want to make it a fortress, and we have this season. It was really good to get the win, we definitely deserved it, we’ve worked really hard over the last couple of weeks and we needed a game off the back of it.”

Baptiste had already gone close twice to giving the Golden Girls the lead, before she put her side in front in the seventh minute by firing past Chloe Sansom.

Watford doubled their advantage before half-time when Gemma Davison pulled the ball back from out wide for captain Ward to get on the scoresheet after 37 minutes.

A long-range effort from Laura Mitchell halved the deficit for 56 minutes, only for the two-goal cushion to be restored almost immediately when Baptiste was denied a second goal by Sansom, but Ward latched onto the loose ball to complete her brace.

Substitute Head made it 4-1 in the 80th minute when she calmly rounded the keeper to slot home, before fellow replacement Rossiter applied the gloss in the last minute of normal time with a spectacular 30-yard strike.

“Now we’re in the semi-final, we’ve got to win two more games,” said Lathrope. “We know it will be a very tough test against either side, they’re both at the top end of their league. It’ll be something a bit different playing against a northern side, but we’ll do our homework on them, we’ll prepare the team and look to go and win the game.”

Meanwhile, Watford have confirmed defenders Morgan Rogers and Scarlett Williams have both left the club to join fellow National League Southern Premier Division side Billericay Town.