Rehanne Skinner said that West Ham United women's team's chances against Brighton & Hove Albion came too late into their 3-1 defeat to the Seagulls in the Continental Tyres League Cup on Wednesday evening.
The Hammers conceded the opening goal of the contest just before half time, as a in-swinging corner seemed to take a final touch off Guro Bergsvand on the way past Megan Walsh.
After the break, Seagulls captain Vicky Losada and Veatriki Sarri both converted from the penalty spot after Shannon Cooke and Jessie Stapleton had fouled in the box.
Hawa Cissoko did grab what would prove to be a consolation with two minutes of normal time remaining.
Skinner spoke to West Ham TV at the full time, reflecting on the result, performance and using the whole squad to its fullest...
Tonight was an opportunity for us to get the whole squad involved in the game
Several players haven’t had a lot of minutes in recent games, so it was a good chance for us to get people on the grass and get some minutes. The league is our big priority, so we want to make sure that everyone fit and ready for the matches we have coming up.
We had Jessie Stapleton making her debut and getting 60 minutes tonight, Jess Ziu got another 30 minutes as she continues with building her match fitness, so there’s definitely positives for us to take in terms of the squad and the minutes played.
It was disappointing that our chances came too late
I just felt that we could have played through more and should have tried to get in behind Brighton a lot earlier in the game. I thought we overplayed a little bit at times, but we had opportunities at the end of the game and we should have at least got another goal.
There’s definitely things that we need to keep working on. To be honest, I thought we played well in the first half, but then we conceded just before half time. There’s some little moments where, as a relatively young squad in terms of WSL experience we need to be making sure that we’re thinking about seeing out those key moments and getting into half time without conceding.
Once we settled into the second half, those chances started to come, we were a little bit more aggressive on the press, we created more chances and forced more errors.
But it is really difficult at that point when you’re three points. Essentially, it’s three set plays that we’ve given away today, so we need to brush up on our concentration and making sure that we’re defending the box the right way at the right time.
We have to be more ruthless in both boxes
The players have led a lot of the conversations at the end of the game today. They know that, as a group, we’re doing loads of really good things in the game, and the performance by and large have been really good.
We’re missing the small details and it’s about being ruthless when we have opportunities to score and when we have to defend like our lives depend on it. We’ve got to make sure that we’re really clinical in all areas and take out the risky moments of the game when we’ve been caught overplaying a couple of times.
It’s a learning curve, but ultimately, the players are determined, and they’ve worked really hard week on week. The intent is there, which is pleasing, I’m pleased with the way that they’re taking on the strategy. We just have to keep doing whatever it takes to make improvements in those area.
We’re back in the league on Sunday, and that’s a big priority for us
A couple of players didn’t get minutes tonight because they’ve had lots already in matches, and it’s important to make sure that everybody is in the best place for the game against Arsenal.
It’s another challenge for us and we want to give the best account of ourselves. We’re still chasing that complete 90 minute performance, and that’s something we’re going to keep working towards.
