West Ham United women’s team manager Rehanne Skinner was delighted with her side’s confidence in front of goal against Brighton & Hove Albion, while also hailing the goalkeeping heroics of Kinga Szemik.
The Hammers chalked up back-to-back Barclays Women’s Super League victories at Chigwell Construction Stadium with a 3-1 success against the Seagulls on Sunday.
Shekiera Martinez opened the scoring early on, following up on a rebound after Melina Loeck saved Riko Ueki’s effort, before Nikita Parris helped Brighton hit back instantly with a sweeping finish.
After an end-to-end first period, the Irons were clinical in the second, taking the lead through Ueki’s well-placed strike, which came four minutes before a Viviane Asseyi penalty secured the three points.
While the home side were effective in front of goal, they had Szemik to thank in the opposite net, who made four spectacular saves to keep the visitors at bay. The pick of the bunch came in the first period as she made a sensational one-handed stop to deny Jelena Čanković from close range.
In her post-match interview with West Ham TV, Skinner was extremely pleased with her side’s desire as they climbed to eighth in the WSL standings.
The performance from back to front was superb.
I think the players have been superb today, and I think they stuck to the game plan really, really well. We created loads of opportunities. I would imagine this is our highest shots-per-game this season. I just thought the confidence in front of goal was superb, and we just played forward with a real purpose, much more than what we probably had before.
I thought we could have had another two goals out of the game, to be honest, but both goalkeepers made some really important saves, so fair play to Brighton as well. Overall, I think the performance from back to front was superb.
Kinga was outstanding.
She's been superb. This has been her strongest training week since she's been here. That just comes with confidence and time with the team. She's been outstanding. With some of the saves she's made in training this week, her performance doesn't surprise me.
That's the capability that she has that we know she has. It takes time for people to settle into the team, and I think she was superb today.
We caused Brighton lots of problems.
We said at half-time we knew that there were goals in the game. I just said, at the end of the day, that's going to happen by the way that we play and the way that they play. From a coaching perspective, would we want it to be that transitional? Probably not, but ultimately, when we've gone forward, we've then created loads of problems.
We've turned the ball over on the edge of their box quite a lot of times. That's led to great chances for us. I said to the players there were goals in the game.
There’s a massive desire within the group.
We've got players across the whole squad that can score goals. We've needed a bit of a mindset shift about our own capabilities in those moments. We felt good in the second half against Chelsea and the chances we created, and I think that's carried over into this game.
There's a definite desire within the group and belief that we've got more in us that we want to show moving forward.
The result puts us in a great headspace heading into the international break.
It's a good win for everybody to go away and do what they need to do [with their countries]. Obviously, it's the biggest number of players we've ever had on international duty as well, which is a credit to the players and all of the work that everybody's doing to get players in that position.
Players here will obviously be working hard with individuals to try and keep them moving forward, ready for Arsenal. It's a big week, with Arsenal and Manchester City to come after the international break. I think it puts everyone in a great headspace to go away and enjoy the win.
