Viviane Asseyi was frustrated that West Ham United women’s team end up on the losing side against Bristol City on Sunday afternoon.
The forward scored the opening goal in the 3-2 defeat at Chigwell Construction Stadium, converting from the penalty spot after Megan Connolly had blocked a strike from Izzy Atkinson with her hand.
Asseyi rolled the ball confidently into the back of the net on 27 minutes, but the Irons could not hold their lead. Last season’s strike partner, Amalie Thestrup, headed in a bullet that Mackenzie Arnold could do very little about, before Ella Powell turned the game on its head moments later, reacting first to Arnold’s initial save and smashing the ball home.
Rehanne Skinner’s side rallied and equalised before half time. Riko Ueki scored her third goal since joining from Tokyo Beleza this summer, working the ball superbly to make space for herself and slot into the bottom corner beyond Kaylan Marckese.
In the second half, Brooke Aspin would have the final say. On 55 minutes, the Robins defender met a floated free-kick into the area, and her header looped over Arnold to ultimately seal the game.
The Hammers pilled on the pressure towards the end of the game, dominating the ball as they occupied the away sides half for much of the final 20 minutes, but to Asseyi’s frustrations, they couldn’t find an equalising goal…
It was painful to lose this game.
We work hard every day out on the training pitch to go out and try and win games, but the reality is that we’ve lost today and that is painful.
Today, we made a lot of mistakes, and you can’t do that in this league because it’s such a high level. Everyday we’re learning and it’s the beginning of the season, so we shouldn’t worry too much. We have to work on the mistakes that we’ve made and be better for the next game.
It was good for me to get a goal.
I always say that because I’m a striker I want to score goals. When there’s been a couple of games in the season when you haven’t scored, you do start to think about it.
Today, I would prefer to have won the game than scoring myself, but football is like this. I’ll always do my best to score in every game, but first and foremost is the team, and we’ve lost today and we all want to do better.
We will keep working ahead of Manchester United next week.
Every day is a new day for being better, and we have to keep working hard to make sure that we improve. This league is tough, there are only good teams in this league, so we have to value every team the same.
Teams will play in different styles, and we expect Manchester United to be a little bit different to Bristol City today, but we will keep working and improving to make sure we’re better next week.
