Rehanne Skinner was disappointed with West Ham United women’s team’s 3-2 defeat to Bristol City on Sunday afternoon.
Things started well for the Irons at Chigwell Construction Stadium, as Izzy Atkinson’s shot was blocked by the hand of Megan Connolly, allowing Viviane Asseyi to step up and convert from the penalty spot after 27 minutes had been played.
However, the away side rallied and found themselves almost immediately level, with former forward Amalie Thestrup heading home. The Robins then turned the game on its head on 37 minutes, with Ella Powell reacting quickest to a save from Mackenzie Arnold to smash the ball home and put the away side ahead.
However, that wouldn’t be the last action of the first half, as Riko Ueki notched her third goal in West Ham colours, finding space and drilling a strike into the bottom corner.
Bristol City edged in front after half time, with Brooke Aspin heading home from a free-kick on 55 minutes. And that would prove to be the final goal in the contest, as the Hammers slipped to a narrow defeat.
Skinner maintained that there were positives to take from the fixture in terms of the way that her team controlled proceedings, however, falling to a defeat was ultimately disappointing…
I think the positives were that we controlled possession and we created opportunities
I don’t think we took advantage of the opportunities to get into the final third as well as we should have. That created some challenges in terms of the chances that we were able to create and we didn’t convert those into the chances that we wanted.
Defensively, we’re disappointed with the goals that we have conceded, because we definitely could have prevented those in a number of areas before they ended up being goals.
It was a positive that we came from behind and got the goal before the break. We tried to change things in the second half, we had finishers coming onto the pitch and changed the shape towards the end. I thought that helped us with creating more opportunities, but we weren’t really able to break them down as I would have liked.
You can’t concede three goals in this league, that’s the bottom line.
Defensively, we have to be a lot more hard working and a lot more aggressive in one-on-one situations. You’ve got to be the best in both boxes in the game and we need to be better.
It’s a work in progress, and we’re trying to improve week on week. There’s definitely lessons to be learned from today. But equally, every game we’ve played, there’s definitely things that we’re learning about the squad as we go along. Today has shown us the areas that we need to keep improving on.
We’re really disappointed about the result
Obviously we’re here to win games and points matter, but ultimately, we’re trying to figure out the best way to move forward and how we want to evolve the squad.
In possession, we did things really well today, and so from a performance perspective that was good. We just have to be a little more ruthless in and around the box to carry us forward and get more points on the board.
We have to be the best in both boxes, that’s a non-negotiable, you have to compete in those areas and be more determined than the other team. I don’t think we were more determined than the other team in that regard today.
It’s great to have Jess Ziu back out on the pitch
She’s worked brilliantly over the last month and has been mentally ready for a couple of weeks. We had to get her through all of the physical side of things to make sure she was absolutely right for the game.
It’s great to get her back out on the pitch and back into games moving forward. I have no doubt that she will be an asset to the team.
We have to be able to use the ball with real purpose
We’re going to continue working really hard in terms of how we look after the ball and how we progress with the quality on the pitch. We have to be able to use the ball with real purpose, and that’s something that we’re going to keep working on this week heading into Manchester United.
But defensively, we’ll be back in the training ground, working as hard as we can so that we don’t concede goals. We’ve got to be really hard to beat up in Manchester next week.
