"I hate losing," reveals Erin Cuthbert. "Anyone asks you, I'm probably the worst loser in the team. I cannot stand it." As she attempts to win her third successive Women's FA Cup final on Sunday, the ever-improving Scottish midfielder is determined to prove she can be the decisive influence in this Chelsea team.

Playing for a team packed with world-stars, the 24-year-old has not always been the first name on the Chelsea team sheet but she has earned her place in the starting line-up this season and is determined to prove her merit on the biggest stage. "I would love to be the difference-maker. I like to think that I'm one of the players that maybe feels like I can take the game by the scruff of the neck. There's certain players that you want in battle. Being from Scotland, being a young girl from Ayrshire, who's kind of had to work for everything. I really understand and I get it. I want to be on that battlefield, fighting for everyone else."

Having signed from for Chelsea as an 18-year-old in 2016, Cuthbert understands how she has matured on and off the field. "I feel like I'm a more well-rounded person. I was a bit raw, off the edges, being a girl from a small town in Scotland, not relatively aware of the challenge ahead. That actually really helped me just being able to take something face on and attack it and sort of jump in with both feet. There were such high-caliber players signing at the time that I kind of fell under the radar when I first signed."

"(Coach) Emma (Hayes) made it clear that there might be opportunities to play with the development team when I first joined the club. That never happened just because I wanted to be in the first team and I wanted to prove myself and I wanted to show I was capable of. I think I've done that but I certainly don't get tired of it. Every year I've still got something to prove. I know I can be better, I know my ceiling is higher than what it is right now. I'm driven to see what the best version of myself actually is."

In Sunday's Women's FA Cup Final, set to be played in front of their first-ever capacity crowd at Wembley Stadium for a women's club match, Cuthbert's Chelsea will face the current league leaders, Manchester United. Chelsea, are the only team to defeat them within regulation time this season and the reigning league and Cup holders are determined to hold on to their titles.

"Honestly, I feel like everybody's been against us this season," said Cuthbert, "so it's just added fuel to our fire. I think everybody expects the winning team to slip up all the time, so it's our job to keep proving we are still at the top and to try to remain there is probably the hardest thing."

"Having a target on your back each and every season requires you to adapt and change the way you play a little bit because everybody starts to figure you out in every single game, there are no easy games in our league any more. So having a target on your back each and every season is quite hard, staying at the top is hard, it requires a lot of psychological training, mental training, mental toughness, mentality."

"That's drilled into us in training every day, about being competitive and being winners. Chelsea is a club where winning is a core part of Chelsea teams, so we want to win everything and I think being able to refine and add every year is going to be really important for staying at the top because the gap is getting narrower."

In the second of those league wins over Manchester United, Chelsea, playing at home, unusually sat back and conceded possession, content to hit their opponents on the counter-attacks. The tactic was effective with the champions winning by a single Sam Kerr goal scored in the first half. Speaking to me about that game, Cuthbert believes this ability to switch game-plans is fundamental to how Chelsea have stayed at the top of the English game.

"I think especially in Europe this season, we've shown that we can play different types of football. Emma's said to us in games that you have to be able to suffer. For us, being able to sit off teams is a strategy that we adopt depending on the opposition. We've shown we can do it in Europe. we've shown we can do it domestically as well, when we done that against Manchester United. But every game is so different, it requires a different strategy and I think we've got a team that can sort of flip between both and we've got enough quality in the dressing room that whatever the manager asks of us, we can carry out that game-plan".

The versatile Cuthbert has not always been a guaranteed starter for Chelsea in her seven years at the club. In 2018, she came off the bench at Wembley as Chelsea defeated Arsenal in the Women's FA Cup Final but in the last two finals she has played every minute, scoring what looked to be the winning goal against Manchester City, with a stunning shot which crashed in off the underside of the crossbar.

Reflecting on that goal a year on, Cuthbert said "what a moment that was for myself personally. I don't normally score a lot of goals so that was certainly one to remember. Especially when it hits off the crossbar, comes down and hits the top of the net, that really is pretty good going. I was pretty buzzing with that!"

Opponents Manchester City denied Cuthbert her winning moment and took the game into extra time where Chelsea endured thanks to another Wembley goal from Sam Kerr, a victory which Cuthbert believes encapsulates her team's winning belief. "The team's resilience and I think our mentality, to never give up. Manchester City were really, really good on the day and when they equalized, they put a bit of pressure on us, it went to extra time, they had the upper hand but one thing about this dressing room is we always seem to find a way. Even if we don't have the answers, we go out and find them."

On Sunday, Chelsea warmed up for the FA Cup final with a 7-0 win over Everton in which Danish striker Pernille Harder came on for the injured Kerr to score with her first touch. Still building up her match-fitness after a hamstring injury, Cuthbert believes the very presence of her returning team-mate should strike fear in every opposing team.

"If I saw Pernille Harder coming off the bench, I'd be terrified. I honestly would. She's looking, pretty good in training. She's sharp. She's ready. She's hungry. She's a player who's such a winner. She's like me, she's a terrible loser. She wants to win every game. So you want somebody like that on your team, you want somebody like that to make a difference and it's players like her who can be the difference makers in games which are determined by such fine margins."