Rehanne Skinner says that West Ham United women’s team have responded well in training this week as they prepare to face Aston Villa at Villa Park in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday.
The Hammers are looking to bounce back from a disappointing 5-0 defeat to Manchester City last time out, and Skinner hopes the team will be able to use the larger pitch at Villa’s main stadium to their advantage.
Indeed, the east Londoners head north for their second away day in succession, hoping to secure their safety in the top flight. A defeat for bottom club Bristol City against Manchester City would see the Irons' WSL status confirmed for next season.
Skinner will be looking for her team to pick up points from their remaining three matches of the campaign, which will see them also take on Leicester City at Chigwell Construction Stadium, and her old club Spurs at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The manager spoke to the media on Wednesday afternoon, and gave an insight into preparations, her thoughts on the fine margins in the WSL and upcoming aims for recruitment in the off-season.
You can listen to the full pre-match press conference by clicking play on the audio player above, or read on for the key talking points…
Preparing for the Villans
I think the biggest thing is that off the back of it [the defeat to Manchester City] we needed to get a few things cleared up. We made sure we ironed things out based on the way that we want to move forward.
Training over the last couple of days has been really good and the response has been positive, which I’d fully expect. We want to make sure we go into this weekend and give a better account of ourselves.
When you get the opportunity to play at these stadiums, I think it’s an incentive for players. We’re really looking forward to playing on a couple of big pitches in our final games, which will allow us to utilise and exploit the space. On the flip side, it means we’ll have a little bit more ground to cover from a defensive perspective, so we’ll have to be well organised in that sense.
Experience and recruitment plans
It comes down to fine margins, and I think the difference at the moment is down to clear-cut chances. A team like Manchester City are taking their chances whereas we’ve not taken ours.
The other part of it for me is something that we’re working hard on behind the scenes, which is building the depth of the squad. There’s a significant amount of experience coming off the bench from the teams in and around the top four, as well as players that are starting the game. I think that has a massive impact over the course of a season and the longevity of a team’s ability to perform week in week out.
With the injuries we’ve picked up recently, we’re a little thin on the ground again going into the end of the season, which is really unfortunate. I think there’s quite a few missing pieces to the jigsaw here, but having only really had one transfer window, I think that was always going to be the case, to be honest.
To be in this league you need the right characters, the right resilience, as well as the talent. The squad has been incredibly young from the start, and we wanted to gain experienced players, but equally we need to have players that understand what it takes to go about the game and the quality and standard of the league.
We’ll need to add more pieces heading into next season to help bridge the gap to the teams in that middle group.
Targeting three points
There’s a lot things that go on whenever you’re preparing for any game. We know Aston Villa have their own style of play and philosophy, and ultimately we want to make sure we look after ourselves and the things we want to implement which will give us the best possible chance to win the game.
We want to make sure we target all of the areas we think are weaknesses in their game, and that’s what gets us into positions where tactically we can cause them as many problems as possible. Our main focus is to stick to our gameplan and look to exploit their weaknesses while using our strengths to do so.
