Paul Konchesky

Konchesky: From the first minute to the 95th minute, the team were fantastic

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Paul Konchesky was incredibly proud of his West Ham United side after their 0-0 draw with Arsenal on Sunday. 

The hosts battled for every blade of grass against the Gunners, who were frustrated by Mackenzie Arnold and co as they looked to try and find the breakthrough. 

The Hammers had chances of their own at Dagenham's Chigwell Construction Stadium, and were looking particularly potent in the first half, with Honoka Hayashi controlling the play in the centre of the park. 

They dug deep in the second 45 as Jonas Eidevall's visitors put the pressure on to pick up their first ever point against Arsenal in the Barclays Women’s Super League. 

And Konchesky was delighted with the work-rate and application of his players, who picked up their first WSL point since 11 December, at the full-time whistle.

The head coach also said the performance and result have given the Irons a big confidence boost ahead of their Continental Tyres FA Women's League Cup semi-final at home to Chelsea on Thursday evening.

 

I feel very happy that we were able to get our first ever point over Arsenal.

From the first minute to the 95th minute, the team were fantastic. I'm happier for my staff and for my players putting in a performance like that against Arsenal and getting a point out of it, as we've never, ever done that before.

 

The team have heard me speak a lot about starting the game on the front foot, and fast.

I think that they were fantastic at doing that tonight. Maybe Arsenal were not expecting us start in that way. I always want my team to play on the front foot and we did that this evening. We know that we aren't always going to have the ball against teams like Arsenal, but I think that when we did, we were fantastic. 

Paul Konchesky

It's important to keep concentration and stay tight at the back when we've not got the ball.

All eleven of them on the pitch tonight were defending for their lives. We kept a clean sheet which was fantastic for Mackenzie Arnold and the back four, but defending starts from the front and every single one of them today had to put a shift in. When someone's out of position, someone else has to fill in and they all did that brilliantly this evening.

 

We want to be competing at the top of the table.

This game was a good sign of the progress that we are making towards that, but to get there you need to take points off of the top teams. This was our first point from one of the top teams this season and hopefully there's going to be many more to come.

 

Amalie Thestrup made her debut against Arsenal.

It was always going to be tough for her to come onto the pitch in a game where we're not seeing a lot of the ball. She's only been with us two or three days and the pace of the WSL is probably a little bit quicker than what she has been used to.

Saying that, I knew what she could bring to the team, and I knew she'd work hard. For the 30 minutes she was on, she ran her socks off and hopefully there's many more to come for her.

 

To have our biggest crowd behind us tonight was fantastic.

I said to the girls before the game, what a chance and opportunity we've got under the lights at home with the biggest crowd we've ever had. The fans were fantastic - they really were our twelfth player tonight. 

 

We'll need all those fans right behind us again this week for a big game against Chelsea [on Thursday evening].

It would be fantastic if they can all come and support us again like they did this evening. Those who watched us tonight were able to see what we are about and hopefully we can go one step further in the Conti Cup on Thursday.

 

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