Rehanne Skinner insists her West Ham United women’s team are relishing the opportunity to face Liverpool again, in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday.
The Hammers head to Merseyside with the aim to bounce back from their Adobe Women’s FA Cup exit in midweek, looking to take confidence from their 2-0 success over Everton into the clash at Totally Wicked Stadium.
Showing great character and team spirit, the women’s team have responded well to defeats this term and head up north knowing three points would take them above the Reds in the WSL standings.
Liverpool, managed by former Hammers boss Matt Beard, will themselves be looking to return to winning ways in the league after they succumbed to a 2-1 loss at Leicester City last weekend - their sixth defeat from 12 matches.
Skinner will want to see the same determined characteristics on display that earned her team victories against Tottenham Hotspur - in the Subway Women’s League Cup - and Everton.
The Irons manager was asked about the transfer window, Princess Ademiluyi and her side's unity in her pre-match press conference on Friday - and here are the main talking points...
We controlled periods of the game against Liverpool
I thought we started the game really, really well. Obviously the first goal was a bit of an error and we got caught on the break for the second, but we had loads of chances. I thought our possession stats, our quality on the ball was far higher than theirs in the first 20 minutes.
I thought we were controlling the game really, really well. As I said the other day, we had a goal disallowed that should never have been disallowed. That would've made it 1-1.
There are bits that we obviously want to improve on, but fundamentally, the goal being disallowed at 1-1, the red card - these things change games. I think when you look at what the team tried to do off the back of that, with the confidence that we had, we still felt like we were massively in the game at half-time. We were still trying to get in behind and get goals in the last 93rd minute, so I think that just shows the character in the team.
We're glad to be facing Liverpool again
I'm glad we're playing them again at the weekend, and so are the players. I think it's an opportunity for us to show what we are capable of, which I thought we did for a lot of spells of the game [on Wednesday].
If you think about how much possession we had in that game, given we're playing such a big chunk of it with ten players, I think that sums it up. We're capable of causing them problems, we're capable of exploiting gaps that they leave, and we want to make sure that we go and show what we're about this weekend. It puts us in a fantastic position where the league table is concerned if we can go and get a win as well.
We want to show consistency
We've been improving every single game and we felt like the first half of the season, we didn't get as many points out of it as what we probably deserved. Against Everton, we got a clean sheet, scored two goals, it probably could have been more, and that showed what we're capable of when we're confident on the ball.
The win against Spurs was very much the same, and that's what we can show if we can continue to do that consistently. There are lots of teams in and around us where I think we can pick up points and we just have to stay diligent with that.
I think we just have to keep fighting to take the spot off the person in front of us, and that's how we're going to approach it [the rest of the season].
Princess is capable of doing some damage in the WSL
She's [Ademiluyi] a real strong character that's capable of doing some damage in the WSL. I think you often try and find windows of opportunity for young players to get loans, and sometimes it gives you what you need. Jessie Stapleton, for example, is having a fantastic time at Sunderland. It's working out how we wanted it to for her.
And for Princess, obviously, she wasn't getting as many minutes as we'd have liked. I think we want to make sure we keep driving her in the way that we're trying to play, and we feel like we can enhance her capabilities here within the team.
So she'll be staying with us for the second half of the season for sure, and she's trained fantastically well. She's added something different back into the group, having had that experience.
I think the squad is in a good place
The players that have come in the building are adding experience and depth within our backline, which is fantastic. And both of which are proven strong, effective players. We're delighted to have Eva [Nyström] and Verena [Hanshaw] in the building.
We have had some loans going out because we've got a bigger squad now, and we've had to make sure that we're in a position where we can ensure players get minutes. I don't really want people to have to stay in the building when they can't get minutes.
I think we're in a good place. We were looking for more of a defensive midfielder to support where we were at, but we didn't feel like we could get what we needed in this window. We'll keep pursuing that moving forward.
