Rehanne Skinner says that West Ham United women’s team are working hard to improve on the fine margins on matches as the team strive to pick up more points between now and the end of the 2023/24 Barclays Women’s Super League season.
The Hammers produced a superb performance against the current leaders Chelsea last weekend, but missed several chances in their 0-2 defeat at Chigwell Construction Stadium.
Skinner’s side will once again be back in front of a home crowd, this time facing Brighton & Hove Albion on Easter Sunday in what will be their penultimate fixture in east London before the campaign concludes.
In her pre-match press conference, which took place on Thursday afternoon, Skinner was asked for her thoughts on taking on the Seagulls, her team’s performance against Chelsea, and to give updates on the fitness of Katrina Gorry and comment on loanee Macey Nicholls’ success with Hashtag United.
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…
Slick Seagulls
Brighton are trying to play the style that goes through their entire club structure. He [new head coach Mikey Harris] has only had a couple of games, and we all know how difficult it is to come in straight away [during the season] because you’re in the thick of it. The way that they play, that's changed, so for us, it's different to when we've played them twice already this season [in the WSL and FA WSL Cup group stage].
We're looking forward to the game, and it's going to poses a few different challenges that obviously we need to prepare for properly. But we're, we're keen to get the game done and played again this weekend at home.
It’s going to pose us a couple of challenges, but we’re looking forward to being back in action and back at home.
Looking back on Chelsea
At the weekend, despite some of the things that overshadowed it, I thought we played really, really well. First half in particular. Yeah, you know, obviously, we had the goal that was disallowed, but actually, we had four really good chances in the first half, and you don't get that many against Chelsea.
We were delighted that we created all of those chances. I think that's a massive confidence boost. And then we just have to be able to do that against every team that we play against week in week out, and obviously, just be a little bit more clinical, and that’s the difference.
Chelsea punished us with those moments where they were more clinical than what we were on the day, and that's the fine margins that we want to try and improve on as a team. We’ll keep working on that and try and learn from it as fast as we possibly can.
If we can get that right, we're more than capable of scoring goals, and we want to make sure that we do that this weekend against Brighton.
Youngster Nicholls loving life on loan
I don't know if you saw her goal celebration [for Hashtag], but she looked probably the most shocked out of everyone on the pitch. As I said, we’re delighted for her.
We've got several young players out on loan at different clubs, and I think that’s important. We want them to learn how to be professional footballers in our setting, but equally, there's a time when they need to be in a situation where they're getting match minutes.
Every single one of the players that we have out on loan are a different age and at a different stage of the pathway really.
We’re really delighted that Macey has progressed loads with hashtag this season. And, and that's, you know, they're the only team that full time in the whole league, you know, Newcastle, so that's a big ask as well, to come out on top as winners in that, but delighted for it to get that silverware.
Gorry ruled out
Katrina Gorry will be out for the season. She sustained the injury in the Chelsea game when she came off and we’re just looking at what the situation is and how that’s going to be treated.
It’s a high ankle injury that came from a challenge that wasn’t given as a foul.
