West Ham United women's team manager Rehanne Skinner hopes history will repeat itself when her team plays host to Arsenal in the Barclays Women's Super League on Sunday.
It was against the Gunners that the Hammers recorded their standout moment of last season, when Vivane Asseyi and Hawa Cissoko found the net to secure a come-from-behind 2-1 WSL victory at Chigwell Construction Stadium.
That marked the Irons' first-ever win against the Gunners - so long a powerhouse of the women's game - and now Skinner is targeting a second.
Following the hard-earned point at Everton last time out, which added to the point gained from a 1-1 draw against Liverpool in the previous home match, the Hammers have shown their resilience this season - a characteristic Skinner knows will be crucial to their hopes of success against their north London rivals.
Here is what she had to say when facing the media in her pre-match press conference on Thursday...
No fresh injury concerns
There’s no fresh injuries. Kristie Mewis is not available this weekend. We’re still in the same position as we were last week with the squad.
We hope history repeats itself
Every game we take as it comes down, and every game is an opportunity for a result. For me, I look at it in the sense that when we get the pieces of the puzzle right, we will compete with everyone in this league, and ultimately, we know that from previous years with lots of different clubs.
On the day, it's eleven vs eleven, and anyone can take points off anyone. That's the status of the league now, and I think for us, you can't get too caught up in what's gone on there and what they're doing. That’s not something that we can focus on. All we can focus on is trying to make sure that we bring our best version of ourselves to the game, because we will need to, as they’re a top side with top players. But if we do that, and we do that right, then we'll be competitive, and we'll make life difficult for them.
Last season's win was the first time the Club had beaten Arsenal in its history. So obviously it's something that people talk about a little bit more, but I think for us we take every game as it comes. Of course, it gives belief and it gives confidence, but we know that the thing that has to happen is we have to be in the present on Sunday, and we have to make sure that we do our jobs diligently, because it's not something that just because you've done it once, you're going to be able to do it again. You have to earn it, and you have to work for it, and that's every single week. We want to take the positives out of that result, and we know that we can, but we have to turn up and do the job at the weekend.
Eidevall did not take his decision to resign lightly
I think [Jonas Eidevall’s decision to resign] is a difficult one because you never fully understand the context of what the driving force behind the decision has been. I think there's always a lot of opinions about what has happened without anybody actually knowing the facts. So, he's obviously got to a point where he's made a decision based on lots of different reasons, because it's not one that anyone would take lightly. So, you know, fair play to him for making the decision that he thought was right. I don't think it puts us in a better or a worse position for what we were preparing for at the weekend anyway.
Sometimes teams turn up fighting even more because there's a different manager, a different face, somebody different to impress, and whatever. So you can never quite tell which way it's going to go. We want to make life as tough for everybody as possible. It’s another opportunity for us to try and get some points out of the game. We know it'll be tough, but we'll do everything we can to do that.
Anouk Denton has been outstanding
I think Anouk [Denton] has been phenomenal. She's got a lot of athletic attributes, which really help her to rise to the demands of the game and the way that it's evolving, especially for her position. I think she's in a position where she's within the England set up; she has been for a long time, but there are elements of her game now that I just think with the athleticism and the maturity and all of those bits added together, it's coming out in lots of different ways.
I think she's been superb and incredibly consistent for us, especially given her age. She's still a young player that's got loads of potential to grow even further. She listens, she learns, she's diligent, and she wants to be a top pro, and I think you can see the benefits of that coming out now this season.
Pressure is a privilege in football
I think for a lot of clubs the biggest battle is those in and around you, because that's what creates the gap and the distance to help you to finish further up the table. And sometimes these ones are a bit of a no pressure, in some respects, because people's perception and people's conversation will be primarily about Arsenal this weekend. I think [the added pressure of playing the top four] will help to bridge the gap, to try and get yourself towards the top half of the table if you take points off teams in the top four.
In the past, Jonas [Eidevall, former Arsenal manager] talked about pressure being a privilege and necessity, and he’s right. Everybody's got to be able to absorb and take pressure in this league, and I think sometimes we’re in a position where we actually thrive in those settings a little bit more, and it's when we've had some of our better performances against teams like Arsenal. I think for us, yes, we want to take points off these types of teams to close the gap, but we're heavily focused on making sure that we create gaps with everybody else in and around us, and we keep building towards that kind of top end really.
Are WSL clubs overlooking English female coaches?
I think the thing is, in my career, I've been fortunate in that Hope Powell supported me. It gave me my first opportunity with England, and there was a female mentoring scheme at the time.
So there were people trying to try and help grow people within the women's game, but the numbers were very small. The knock-on effect of that is that there's not many people doing what I'm doing at the moment. For me, I've always tried to support English coaches as well, because I've known about that, and it's one of the things that I've tried to help and support in the game, the way that Hope, Brent Hills and Mo Marley have helped me. In terms of my role at England, I had a mentee with me at England, which was Carly Davis, who is now a manager at Nottingham Forest.
When I went to Tottenham, I approached Lauren Smith to try and help her to go back into club football. I employed Vicky Jepsen because she just got sacked at Liverpool and got her back in the game. I'm also supporting a mentee here who went through an interview process, has loads to offer, and just needs additional support and experience in order to try and help bridge the gap. Laura Kaminski was the academy manager at Tottenham when I went there, so I kept her really close to the first team so that she could gain the experience. So the point about experience is massive, as you don't really get that too easily.
I think the problem is that women are helping women to grow and to create opportunities and experience, but that's also got to happen on the other side of the game, where there's other clubs that aren't necessarily giving the same opportunities, or other people who aren't thinking in the same way. For me, that's a part of the growth of the game, which is why I've always supported female coaches to try and gain further experience in the same way that I had. That's something that I think needs to be looked at across the board, and we should definitely be ensuring there's a space in everybody's coaching team to support.
There is a lack of black coaches in the game as well, but there is more than enough space within the teams to have a better, more diverse staffing group that gives a different perspective to help the game grow further.
Adopting a 'fearless' mindset
We're trying to keep evolving the mindset across the board with that fearless attitude that we have to just be prepared to play our way. When you go into these games, you have to be fearless; otherwise, you second guess yourself as a player. I think that's one of the things we're trying to get away from and to just back ourselves and make a decision. The more consistent we can get with that, the better the performances will continue to move in that direction, and that's what we're aiming for this weekend. We want to keep improving on what we did against [Manchester] City and in the first half, in particular, against Everton last week.
