West Ham United women's team manager Rehanne Skinner is hoping to see her side make better decisions in their upcoming Barclays Women's Super League fixture on Sunday, which will see them face Arsenal at Meadow Park.
The Hammers are looking to bounce back from a disappointing run of results, but Skinner knows that the game against the side currently sat in 2nd in the standings will be a test. But, she also admits that there have been some positives over the past matches in terms of performance, as well as for individual milestones.
After a Continental Tyres League Cup clash in midweek, the focus returns back to the WSL, and Skinner will be hoping to see her side produce a positive display before league action breaks for two weeks due to international action.
The boss spoke with whufc.com before the game against the Gunners, which kicks off at 2pm (GMT) on Sunday afternoon and is available to watch on The FA Player.
We were really pleased for players who haven’t played to get minutes on Wednesday night
We had players out there that needed some match fitness, whilst we needed to make sure that others were managed because of the loading in recent weeks. There were positives that came from that. We had Jessie Stapleton making her debut for the Club, whilst Jess Ziu continued with building up her match fitness after her injury last year.
As a Club, we’re keen on developing young players and giving them opportunities, and I know it meant a lot for Jessie to make her debut. We’re all really pleased to see her called up for the Republic of Ireland senior squad for their matches during the next international break.
We’ve been working over the last few days on ensuring that we’re as hard to beat as possible
We’ve got to make sure that we limit the gaps that Arsenal has to play through us and maintain our shape.
Being played through is not something that happens to us frequently to us. From the previous two matches, it’s not that we’re getting broken down in open play, it’s more around the decision making that is causing us a few challenges at the moment.
We want to show a bigger commitment in and around both boxes. We’ve been creating some fantastic crossing opportunities in games. The types of crosses that we’ve put into the area and the decisions we’ve made around delivery have been really good. We just need to find a way of making sure that we’re capitalising on those.
Arsenal will be a difficult test for us
Their variations and style of play can create a lot of defensive challenges that you have to solve. We have to be prepared for them to play through you but also be prepared for them to go direct.
Defensive compactness will be important in this game, and we’ve been working on that over the last two days in training. We have to minimise the chances of being disconnected as a team when you’re defending against them.
We’re looking forward to the test, though. We want to keep improving on our last game, and that’s all we can try and do. There’s been several spells in games where we’ve performed really well. And essentially, we just need to get over the line with some of the games where we felt like we should have had points.
