Kristie Mewis’ West Ham United debut was likely more frantic than she would have imagined.
The 32-year-old midfielder entered the field on 60 minutes on Sunday, with the Hammers 3-1 down to Tottenham Hotspur.
The midfielder wasn’t available for the clash against Chelsea in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup last week as she continued to build her fitness ahead of returning to action, and that moment came amongst the blustery conditions created by storm Isha.
Mewis’ impact, along with Anouk Denton and Jess Ziu who also came off the bench with 30 minutes of normal time to go, was almost instant as they helped to lift energy levels.
Viviane Asseyi bundled in a goal, and then Mewis’ freekick found the head of Amber Tysiak, who expertly steered an effort beyond Barbora Votíková to bring the game level on 71 minutes.
However, in a game that ebbed and flowed, it would be the away side that would leave with all three points, with Jessica Naz firing into the bottom corner four minutes later.
It was another showing full of character and resilience from Rehanne Skinner’s team, and Mewis was pleased to be able to contribute in her opening match, and she hopes to continue to do so throughout the remainder of the 2023/24 campaign.
It’s disappointing that we’ve come away with nothing out of the game.
We did some really good things in the game, we scored three goals which I think is huge. The team had some really good spurts and I feel as though we dominated for most of the game.
I think that we have a lot of potential, and we need to just tale all of the positive things that we did tonight and bring it into next week’s league game, as well as the game in the Cup on Wednesday.
Training with the team over the past couple of weeks has been so much fun. The level here is really high, and everyone has been so welcoming. I feel like if we continue to do what we’re doing out on the pitch and take it into next weekend’s game, then we’re going to have an even better performance than we did today.
It felt really good to make my debut.
It’s always been a dream of mine to play here, so it felt so good. I was excited to be coming on because the game itself was an exciting one, and you want to be a part of those games.
Everyone of course is really disappointing, but it was a good performance, and I think we just need to continue to chip away and eventually the points will come.
It felt good to be able to give something to the team. It was a better header from Amber [Tysiak] than it was the ball in, so she definitely deserves all of the credit.
I’m just hoping that my presence and just being out there to help the team will move things in the right direction. I want to impact the team as best as I can and give positive vibes. My goal is to be a leader and to make everyone feel good and play good.
There’s plenty of good things that we need to take into a busy week.
We scored three goals; we’re moving the ball pretty well. I still think there’s a lot of things that we can work on this week, but everything is lining up really well and everyone feels really good.
We just have to make sure we get the points now and have a positive week.
