West Ham United women’s team manager Rehanne Skinner stated her side will be a threat to a lot of the teams in the Barclays Women’s Super League, as they prepare for the visit of Leicester City on Sunday.
The Hammers are looking to bounce back from the weekend’s narrow 2-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur. But despite the late loss, Skinner stressed how determined the players are to put the result in north London right on their return to Chigwell Construction Stadium.
Looking to combine her side’s defensive resolve and attacking flair, Skinner wants to reward the unwavering support from the fans on Sunday and has also hailed the attacking qualities of striker Riko Ueki.
Here’s what the boss said when facing the media in her pre-match press conference on Thursday afternoon.
Everyone’s determined to put last weekend right
Obviously, the late goal at Spurs was a really tough one to take. Everyone’s working so hard to improve the scores, the results, the points. We played well, so from a performance perspective, when you’ve known you’ve done some really good stuff, and something like that happens, that’s the tough part of football.
Naturally, emotionally, it takes a bit of time to come down from that but everyone is determined to put that right this weekend. We’ve been able to focus on the grass and move forward in training this week - positively, which is a good sign.
Everyone has rallied around Camila Sáez
I think the biggest thing to remember in all these situations is that there’s so many things players do right in a game. When it’s a defender or goalkeeping mistake, it always gets highlighted significantly. But the missed opportunities from three yards out or the misplaced passes that lead to a chance aren’t talked about the same.
It’s important that, as a team, you get around those people - and we did with Camila. It’s important they understand their worth within the team and their value to the team because there’s loads of things they have done well.
It’s not about Camila, it’s about making sure collectively we see those games out. That’s something we want to be better at, game management.
We want to progress the ball with purpose
Every game we feel positive about getting something from, it’s just about getting over the line. We’ve obviously picked up a couple of good points but it’s important to keep chipping away at that. The confidence in the team is good, but it changes the landscape when you get more points. Goals change things and I think we need to get a few more of them. I think that will help us in the right direction.
Dominating possession is something we’ve got the capability of doing more effectively in the team, it’s something we want to build on generally in our game, so it’s a good time to get everybody on the ball, loads of touches.
But for me, it’s about progressing it with purpose as well. We need to utilise and exploit spaces that are available to us. We want to keep the ball in their half as much as we possibly can and repeat what we did against Spurs in the first-half. We want to be more attack-minded and positive on the ball, but regardless of Leicester’s set-up, that’s something we want to make sure we utilise and keep improving on.
Riko’s hold-up and link-up play is one of the best in the league
If you are a football-minded person, you absolutely do not miss Riko Ueki because the things she does for 100 minutes: her timing of movement, her ability to manipulate defenders to get the ball where she wants to get it is phenomenal. She’s a top player and, unfortunately, not enough people acknowledge that. But we know the value she brings us.
I think my biggest challenge has been to make sure everybody on the pitch knows what she’s doing, that’s something we’ve been working really hard on. In terms of her hold-up play and her link-up play, coming off the front line, she’s got to be right up there in the league, across the board.
We want to reward the fans for their incredible support
We’ve had some fantastic support on all of the away trips, but being back at home, the way we’re applying ourselves in games is something we want all of our fans to see live. The pace we’re doing things at and positive attacking play is something that raises the fanbase, and it gives them things to cheer about. We’re looking forward to being back at home and making sure our supporters give their manager and staff a tough day.
The fans have gone through a lot of change and inconsistency and they’ve stayed so solid and resolute with trying to support the team. Undoubtedly, there’s frustrations for fans, we know that. We want to bring them a win as much as they want the win, but they do see the change in how we’re playing. When the excitement builds, you can hear they completely appreciate what we’re trying to do.
We have a hard-working team, a family-based team, that’s what we’ve always been and what the football club represents. The fans have been superb, really loud, and the attendances are getting higher and higher.
The importance of set-plays
Set-plays are one of the ways you try to increase your numbers. You have to remember, the teams we’ve played up until this point, you don’t get many opportunities against. We have to keep working on ways that we can capitalise, and the secondary outcome is you sometimes get more attacking set-plays.
Riko’s timing and movement is good on set-plays, and her jump-height ability is top class. It’s about making sure our deliveries are consistent, which is something we’ve worked on improving since last year. Riko took her goal so well on Sunday and the delivery from Viviane Asseyi was superb.
We’re putting up better defensive stats this season
In pre-season, we weren’t fantastic defensively, we had a lot of work to do. There's loads of different factors for that: a lot of players came in very late in the transfer window so we needed to work on the team’s cohesion.
You have to defend first in the context of making yourselves hard to be beaten. We had to get the structure and organisation right, and minimise the goal-scoring opportunities.
If you look at the expected goals from last year in games against the opponents we’ve faced, compared to what it’s been this year, in some instances, we’ve more than halved the number of opportunities those teams have had. That’s enabled us to keep the goal difference lower.
We’re going to be a threat to a lot of teams
It was a challenge for the team to settle in with really good opposition in the first five games before the international break. I think what you started to see in the Tottenham game was the defensive work we were trying to do, matched up with the way we can move the ball. When we bring those two things together, I think we’re going to be a real threat to a lot of the teams.
I’m pleased with the progress that we’ve made and the performances we’ve had, but we all know it’s about winning and that’s what we want to be able to do next. Once we get that one, you’ll see the difference collectively across the team.
