Rehanne Skinner wants her West Ham United women’s team to use the atmosphere of the Claret and Blue crowd in Dagenham to make life as difficult as possible for Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday.
The Hammers return to Barclays Women’s Super League action after two weeks without a WSL clash as they go in search of three points at Chigwell Construction Stadium at the weekend - seeking back-to-back home league victories for the second time this term.
Last time out saw the Irons’ Subway® Women’s League Cup journey come to an end at the hands of Chelsea, but Skinner’s side took huge positives from the hard-fought defeat in which they went toe-to-toe with Sonia Bompastor’s Blues for the majority of the semi-final tie.
And they will be looking to carry those positives into Sunday’s game against the Seagulls, who are yet to win a league match since the reverse fixture between the two teams in November - when Katrina Gorry scored her first goals for the Club in a 3-2 defeat.
West Ham are in a positive position personnel-wise heading into the encounter with no fresh injury concerns. However, Li Mengwen is unable to play against her parent club while Amber Tysiak remains suspended.
As well as team news, Skinner was asked about Dagný Brynjarsdóttir’s call-up to the Iceland squad for the first time since April 2023 in her pre-match press conference, and the manager expressed her delight for the midfielder, as well as how proud she is to see the women's team have a record amount of players going away on international duty.
Here are the main talking points from Skinner's pre-match press conference, including how excited she is for her side to return to east London and how re-energised her squad are after a busy period.
The squad have had a chance to re-energise
We had such a heavy game period, the players gave it everything in that time and we had some really good performances. But it’s (a weekend without a game) given everybody the chance to have a few days to re-energise.
In the weekend off, we would have obviously loved to have played in the FA Cup, but it came at a time to help us train for the game against Brighton. Training this week has been fantastic, you can tell everyone just needed a bit of breathing space and we’re looking forward to the weekend.
Brighton will pose a good test
We all felt it (the reverse fixture) was an opportunity missed because we created some really good chances, we scored some good goals as well. Some of the bits around their goals we were disappointed with, in terms of our defensive structure, but we’ve been working hard on that. We’re in a good place where that’s concerned.
It’ll be a good test, it’s a good game to watch for a neutral, based on how we both play. We’ve rectified a few of the errors we made in the previous game in games recently, and that’s going to help us prepare for the weekend.
We feel at home in Dagenham
We love being at home, the fans have been superb and they just get better and better. It’s testament to the work the Club’s done to engage people to come to our games. It’s made a difference to how we feel at home. We’ve been in the stadium longer, so it does feel like home.
We’ve had some good results there and we want to keep that going. We want to make life as difficult as we possibly can for everyone at home.
We’re delighted for Dagný
She’s been working really hard and she’s got herself into a position for selection, which is fantastic news. For us, this is the highest number of players we’ve had called up and that’s testament to the work that everybody’s doing.
We’re delighted for Dagný. We know it’s something she wanted to strive towards after having Andreas and we’re really pleased she’s got that opportunity.
