Rehanne Skinner is hoping her West Ham United women’s team can turn positive spells into a complete performance when they host Liverpool in their Barclays Women’s Super League home opener on Sunday.
The Hammers kicked-off their 2024/25 WSL season last weekend at Manchester United, where they produced moments of quality but were unable to turn them into goals, while their hosts found the net on three occasions.
A 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford left Skinner disappointed but not despondent about her team, which included three debutants in Li Mengwen, Camila Sáez and Kinga Szemik, was led by a new captain in Katrina Gorry, and welcomed Dagný Brynjarsdóttir back after the midfielder gave birth to her second child.
Now, attention turns to Chigwell Construction Stadium, where West Ham will take on a Liverpool side managed by former Irons boss Matt Beard, who themselves began the new campaign with a 1-1 home draw with Leicester City.
Both sides, therefore, are seeking their first victory of the new term, and Skinner is confident her players will rise to the occasion in front of what is expected to be a bumper crowd in east London.
Speaking in her pre-match press conference, Skinner backed Japan centre-forward Riko Ueki, who scored in both WSL games against Liverpool last season, to lead the line well, but confirmed that Scotland international Kirsty Smith will miss Sunday’s game.
We're trying to find our feet
Do you know, I thought that there were spells where we played really well [at Old Trafford].
We were obviously trying to find our feet with new players and getting everybody back on track with things, so I think there were a lot of really good positives within the game.
I think, in the second half in particular, we were better in our press, more aggressive with it and just more effective higher up the pitch, and obviously we created some good chances in the second half.
We just switched off on a couple of moments. Fine margins cost you goals and the chances that we had we didn't take, so there are loads of positives to take out of it going into this week and in trying to settle everybody into the team. Obviously, we've had quite a lot of new signings, so that's going to just take us a few weeks.
Liverpool are most physical team in the league
I thought the Liverpool v Leicester game was competitive, and it was going both ways and there were opportunities in the game.
Liverpool probably dominated a bit more of the possession, but ultimately you know what you're getting when you play against Liverpool. They're the most physical team in the league, so you can expect that side of the game, and we want to compete with everybody, so we have to make sure that we're in a position to deal with whatever the game throws at us, and that's going to be what that looks like this weekend.
We're delighted to be playing at home. That's the big thing. We've got a lot of new players to get in front of our fans at home. That's going to be important for us.
We're obviously trying to keep raising our fanbase and make sure that we're getting more and more people in to watch our games, which obviously everyone's been working really hard on, so we’re looking forward to being at home against them this weekend.
Riko Ueki's movement is phenomenal
I think when Riko Ueki started to really thrive was towards the end of last season.
It’s taken a little bit of time to get people in and around her that understand the way that she plays, and I still think we've got some work to do with that, and obviously that's been a focus.
Now that we've got everybody in the building, so to speak, we've been trying to make sure that we are connecting those dots a little bit better. Her movement is phenomenal. We don't always see it, and we're trying to make sure that we do build those connections across the team a little bit better, and that will then give us, as a collective, more opportunities, because she's capable of assisting as well and she's been effective in that sense.
So certainly she's a top player that we want to try and utilise even more and put in positions where she can be the most effective.
It's going to take time for everyone to settle in
It's going to take time when there are so many new signings and then the players that are obviously coming back into the team, like Mini (Gorry), Dagný and Kristie Mewis.
They were here before, but haven't played a lot this this year in general. And then the new players, like I spoke about post the Man United game, it takes time [to understand] the way that we're playing, it takes time for everybody to come from different countries, to settle in, to get used to the style of play.
We've still got some translation factors that are going on, and then all of those bits, they do take time, but I'm really pleased with the squad, and I think once we get everybody firing on all cylinders together, we'll be even more effective at what we're trying to do, because individually, we know we've got good pieces of the jigsaw.
We just need to kind of fit that together, and we just need to keep having these games, really, to keep moving that forward.
Jess Ziu is really positive
Jess is doing really well [after undergoing knee surgery to repair her ACL].
She's really positive, Jess. She's very much ‘let's just get this done and get on with it, and let's fix it and get back on the pitch’, basically.
She flipped mindset very quickly into resolving it and getting surgery done. She's in a fantastic position to get surgery done early, which wasn't the case last time when it happened, and isn't for a lot of people, so that's then put her in a position where she can kind of focus on the rehab.
She's off crutches, things are healing well, and she's obviously started trying to get the mobility back and everything functioning and firing, which is taking positive steps.
