West Ham United Women’s boss Paul Konchesky is looking to see his side bounce back into form when they take on Liverpool in the quarter-finals of the Continental Tyres League Cup on Wednesday evening.
The Hammers travel to Merseyside for the second time in three days, this time to Prenton Park in Birkenhead to take on Matt Beard’s Reds for a place in the last four of the competition.
Having been on the wrong end of a 3-0 scoreline against near-neighbours Everton in the Barclays Women’s Super League (WSL) on Sunday, Konchesky is hoping to see his side get back to winning ways.
It’s the team’s second visit to Prenton Park this season, having lost 2-0 in the WSL in early December, and they will be looking to produce a better performance this time around and book their spot in the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time since the 2020/21 season.
Wednesday is a great opportunity for us.
You never know how many times you’ll have the opportunity to make it into a semi-final in your career. Obviously, everyone then wants to go one step further after that and reach the Final.
It’s in sight now but we need to make sure we get the job done tonight and give ourselves that opportunity of getting there.
We need to be more ruthless in both boxes if we are to progress.
I said after our defeat to Everton that I wasn’t concerned with the performance, but we need to tighten up at the back, and also be more clinical in front of goal.
After the first 15 minutes at Walton Hall Park, I thought we were good. We played some nice stuff and had some half decent opportunities. We just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.
That’s our frustration at the moment and the area that we haven’t been good at since returning from the break – so we want to put that right against Liverpool.
We’re still without Amber (Tysiak) and Jess (Ziu) for this game.
We know that it’s going to be a long time before we see Jess back in action because of the amount of rehab and recovery time that is needed for an ACL injury.
Amber is making good progress with the knock that she picked up a couple of days after signing with us, but this game will come too early for her.
It’s a chance for us to get one over on Liverpool.
They’re a good side and had the better of us in the game at Prenton Park in December, but we want to get our own back on them on Wednesday.
They have some really good players that will cause us issues, plus they’ve recruited a couple of new players since our previous meeting.
But I have faith in our players to implement our gameplan and come out on top.
You can watch the Hammers in action live on the FA Player on Wednesday evening, with coverage beginning just before the scheduled 7:30pm (GMT) kick-off.
