Rehanne Skinner has called on her West Ham United women’s team squad to work together to keep their encouraging run of form going at Manchester City on Sunday.
The Hammers head to the North West for the second time in their opening three Barclays Women’s Super League (WSL) matches having bounced back from an opening-day defeat at Manchester United with two positive performances and results.
First, the Irons came from a goal down to snatch a dramatic 1-1 WSL draw with Liverpool thanks to Riko Ueki’s late header last weekend.
Then, in midweek, summer signing Seraina Piubel netted her first goal in Claret and Blue, Emma Harries and Viviane Asseyi both scored twice and Ueki was on target again as Portsmouth were swept aside 6-1 in West Ham’s Women’s League Cup Group C opener.
While a trip to Joie Stadium to face Gareth Taylor’s unbeaten UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifiers brings with it a big challenge, manager Skinner is optimistic her players, who have adapted to a new 5-2-3 formation, will rise to it.
We need to stick together to stop and hurt City
When it comes to dealing with Manchester City’s attack and, in particular, Bunny Shaw, I think obviously defensively we need to make sure that we keep working to be harder to break down, more compact and putting ourselves in a position where we have more impact as a team and not being isolated, and when you get that right you can be much harder to beat and make life difficult for teams.
With the attacking quality that we know Man City have got, you can't get all of that right all of the time naturally, but we want to make sure that we do it as a collective, as that gives us the opportunity to be more effective as one, versus individually, and if you get that right, stay concentrated and be alert all the time because we know one opportunity can be all it takes, we can make life difficult for teams like City.
Equally, at the other end, we want to keep building on how effective we are in front of goal. We know we can cause problems. We just haven’t done that as much as we’d have liked and we need to keep working on that.
Our formation change has given us flexibility
We’ve moved to a back five this season and it's a combination of personnel and ensuring that our setup and structure helps us play to our strengths, both in and out of possession.
At this stage, in these previous games, a back five has felt like a better fit for us so far, but that doesn't mean to say we won't play with a back four because we have in pre-season as well.
We want to have the tactical flexibility to do what we feel is right for the opposition as well as for us, so it (a back five) gives us a little bit more flexibility on how we want to play.
We want to start games faster
Making a quicker start is something that we're working on.
We've got to start coming out of the blocks a little bit quicker, and we want to make sure that the way that we're trying to play the game, we're more effective at in the early stages of a game
Obviously we've had a few challenges with that in the past, and I think that's been almost because we're waiting to see what the opposition are going to do. That has to stop. Essentially, we need to be more proactive in the way that we want to play and that's a bit of a mindset shift. It's a bit of a belief element. And I think we were much better.
We've been much better at that in some of our pre-season games, but not consistently. So, it's something that we want to try and get better at moving forward and stay in the game for as long as we can, because we know we'll get chances, and then it just gives a bit more confidence to be able to take those.
Being away from home, it's always a test, going up to the North West, it's always a challenge. It's a difficult place to go to, we know that, but I think it's just purely and simply around how much believe in what we're doing, and we are prepared to deliver it the second that the whistle blows. That's the bit that we're trying to get right at the moment.
Our midweek win gave us confidence
I think our midweek Women’s League Cup win over Portsmouth was key. Obviously, the Wednesday game was great because we've been able to get everybody on the pitch that's been available.
I think that then gives confidence to the whole squad, and we have to try and keep the whole squad ready to ensure that we've got the depth.
That's going to help us for the duration of the season. I think it's really helped us to get everybody minutes, everybody moving in the same direction, playing in the shape that we've been playing in so that they're familiar with that first 25 minutes of that game. I think it took people a little bit of time to find their feet as well, because it was a group that hadn't started together as yet.
Obviously, I'm delighted with the goals. The goals were really good team goals as well. Every single one of them had an impact with multiple people leading up to them being scored. That helps strikers to get goals, to get confidence and belief in what we're doing. And we probably could have had two more out of those shots that we had.
Overall, we were more ruthless in front of goal. And we definitely want to be taking that into all of our games moving forward and just building on that.
Every player needs to be ready to make an impact
The approach to it from the whole group to Wednesday’s game was just really positive. Everybody is really together, so they're really supportive of everybody that's getting starting minutes, wanting everybody to do well, wanting to contribute to that.
I keep saying to the whole team: ‘You've got to be able to impact whatever part you play, because if everybody has an impact in the game, collectively, we'll always do better’. So, I think, once we found our feet at the start the second half, I thought we were very good on Wednesday night.
I just made a little bit of a reset at half-time, a couple of little bits, nothing major, that I thought would help us a little bit more. Ultimately, I think the players who came on the pitch in the second half [like Emma Harries, Viviane Asseyi and Riko Ueki] kind of added value to that.
Obviously it great for Serena [Piubel] to get a first goal for the Club as well in that game, so I think when you fire in like that it just breeds confidence throughout the whole team and it kind of becomes a bit of a competition amongst the forwards as well.
You want everybody to be in that positive mindset, to be getting goals, and ultimately, we also want all of them to be fighting for a shirt against each other as well, because that then drives the standards and the quality that we're operating at which we'll need for every game that we go into.
Kirsty Smith is nearing a return
Kirsty Smith is not available this weekend still, unfortunately.
She just had a bit of an issue with her shoulder that has been dealt with and it is back on track and she is healing well.
She is in light training and she should be back in training with us next week as normal.
