Shannon Cooke believes that West Ham United women's team are continuing to make positive strides under manager Rehanne Skinner.
Cooke was speaking after the 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday evening, where Sam Kerr and Erin Cuthbert found the net for the current Barclays Women's Super League champions was enough for them to secure the win on a chilly autumn night in west London.
However, the scoreline didn't reflect the hard-working performance that the 23-year-old defender and her fellow teammates in Claret & Blue produced at Kingsmeadow, as they caused plenty of problem for Emma Hayes' team on the night.
A front three of Emma Harries, Viviane Asseyi and Riko Ueki were dangerous on the counter attack, whilst at the other end, calmness was a key feature of the team's play as they worked the ball out from the back with aplomb on a number of occasions.
Cooke has appeared in every match so far this season under Skinner, and believes that the team are making positive strides under her leadership. She reflected on the positives that the team can take from the defeat to Chelsea with West Ham TV at the full time whistle...
We obviously don’t like losing, but there are positives to take from tonight
I think we’ll go back to the drawing board; there were times we were playing round them really well.
We created some great chances and I think we were difficult to break down. But ultimately, it’s a game of 90 minutes and if you make a couple of mistakes and they’ll capitalise on that, which is what they did.
I don’t think we deserved to lose two nil. Like I said, it’s a game of 90 minutes and you make a couple of mistakes and they capitalised on it because of the quality that they have.
I think we had some great chances that we will work on putting in the back of the net, and then obviously just tightening up on those couple of mistakes for the goals. But I think overall, it was a positive performance, and we did do some really positive things.
Everyone is on board with the way that we’re trying to play under the manager
I think since Rehanne has come in, it’s obvious what we’re trying to do. Everyone is on board, and everyone’s buying into that, which is ultimately only going to make us successful.
I think we got a glimpse of that tonight, and then last week against Brighton as well. So hopefully things will only continue to improve the more matches that we play.
We want to be a side that gives everything. We spoke about it a lot in the changing room about who we want to be and the identity of this team. And hard work is one of them.
I think that’s something that you can control. You can’t necessarily control everything and the game of football, but your individual and your team hard work and effort is definitely something you can control. So, we look to do that.
This week has been tapered towards making sure we could perform across the three matches
Our staff behind the scenes have done a good job in making that we had the legs to come here and play the full 90 minutes and put in a hardworking shift as well. Credit to them for managing us in the way that they did.
Heading into Liverpool, we know that not only do we have positives to take into the game, but we also know that we’ve got confidence in trying to play and from the back and through the thirds.
It’s always good to know that you can still perform in a three game week, and we have to make sure that we work hard again heading into Liverpool and perform in a similar fashion to how we have this week.
Next up, the women's team welcome Matt Beard's Liverpool to Chigwell Construction Stadium! Purchase your tickets by clicking on the graphic below!
