The Manchester City head coach, Andrée Jeglertz, heaped praise on his side’s prolific striker Khadija Shaw for not allowing speculation about her future to hinder her performances, after she continued her fine goalscoring form with the opening goal at Wembley to help her side complete the Double by lifting the Women’s FA Cup.

The Jamaica striker, who signed a four-year contract on Monday after previously being set to leave City this summer, has scored relentlessly in recent weeks, including the winning goal in their Cup quarter-final in April as well as the winner in their semi-final at Chelsea in May, before nodding in from an Alex Greenwood cross for the first goal in Sunday’s 4-0 victory over Brighton.

“I’m very impressed how she handled that,” Jeglertz said, when asked about Shaw’s continued form amid the recent flurry of stories about her contract situation, with the 29-year-old having been heavily linked with Chelsea since March. “She has never shown any kind of mood that has affected her performance.

“Of course, she is a person, like everybody else, so of course, she will know about all the writing, she knows about that, but at the same time she has been so professional all the time, always performed and always been a positive person. So, no matter what, I haven’t seen or noticed any kind of challenges for her.”

Shaw performed a dramatic U-turn to stay at City after multiple sources had indicated in early May that she had decided to leave. Speaking to the Guardian after Sunday’s victory, the City defender Rebecca Knaak applauded Shaw, adding: “Massive respect to Bunny. It’s not been easy for her.

“There’s been a lot of noise in the background. It’s quite hard as a player to still focus then, and that’s exactly what she did. She’s always turned up in all the games for us. She’s so important for us and I’m just incredibly happy that she’s staying, and the way she delivered, it’s exactly why we need her.”

A striker of Shaw’s clinical nature is exactly what Brighton appeared to be missing, in a game where the Sussex side had a greater share of the possession and 12 efforts at goal to City’s 14, but eventually ended up on the wrong end of a heavy scoreline.

Asked what his team will need to progress to the next level, the Brighton head coach Dario Vidosic, who was proud of his side’s “bravery” on the ball, said: “I’ll review the whole season and hopefully, we’ll see how we go in the summer, in terms of players that could potentially be coming to the club. We want to keep taking these steps [forward].

“We can gain a lot of confidence now, not just from today, but also from the previous weeks, with what we’ve been able to do against some really, really good teams, so it fills us with a lot of confidence.

“This will hurt for a little while, but hopefully we can use that motivation and that fire for next season, starting in pre-season.”

Brighton were in their first Wembley final and finished seventh in the Women’s Super League.

After a strong campaign where they knocked Arsenal out of the Cup, Brighton will now also want to keep hold of their top players, and Vidosic added: “To build, you need to have that core together, so they can keep working, keep learning and keep growing together.

“I think it is important that we keep as many as we can together. And then we just start to bring in some other areas that we’ll look to strengthen in.

“The club has started [this summer’s recruitment], so there are a couple [of signings] that will be hopefully be announced relatively soon. I’m sure it’ll be a fairly busy summer again.”