Manager Rehanne Skinner stated how much her West Ham United women’s team players wanted to end their Chigwell Construction Stadium campaign with a victory for the fans.
However, despite fighting until the very end, they fell to a narrow 3-2 defeat at the hands of Aston Villa, who brought an end to the Hammers’ five-game unbeaten run.
In a pulsating first half, Ebony Salmon opened the scoring after just five minutes, but the Irons came back fighting.
Shekiera Martinez restored parity with her tenth league goal of the season, heading home from Verena Hanshaw’s cross, before Riko Ueki put the women’s team ahead with a close-range finish following a battling run from captain Katrina Gorry.
But a goal from Rachel Daly on 37 minutes and a calm finish from Chasity Grant nine minutes after half-time turned the game on its head, as Villa claimed all three points in east London.
That was only the Hammers’ third WSL loss of the season at Chigwell Construction Stadium, a place that has brought them so much joy throughout the 2024/25 campaign, and Skinner and her team showed their gratitude to the Claret and Blue faithful post-match, completing a lap of honour around the stadium.
The Irons wanted to bring the curtain down in Dagenham with three points, and Skinner felt her team had the chances to secure a positive result against the Villains, speaking after the defeat to West Ham TV.
We created chances, we just didn't finish them off.
The first half panned out a little like I expected, to be honest. We have both been exceptional in transition, so I thought there'd probably be goals from both sides.
When we look back at ours (the goals we conceded), I think they were avoidable, so we're disappointed with that. But I think we showed great character to get our goal back when we went behind.
I think there were opportunities for us, we created better chances and just didn't finish them, unfortunately. I think we were better on the ball today and moved the ball really, really well. So that's a bit of confidence from that perspective.
Overall, there's a load of positives to take out of it, which are around the fans and everybody at home. It's just been fantastic this season, and our home form has been really good. It’s disappointing that we've not got that result today to finish off for the fans, but they've been outstanding all season.
It wasn't to be.
It felt like if we'd played another few minutes, we might have got one. It was one of those types of feelings towards the end of the game with the momentum. But it wasn't to be, some days that's how it goes. And it's so difficult to manage because we feel like it's an opportunity lost for points. I think that's obviously always harder to take.
The fans have influenced our home form massively.
Our home form this year has been one of the best in the league, so that's obviously massive credit to the players, the way that we've played and the fans, who've influenced that massively. That's something that's hugely helped us this year.
We want to make ourselves really difficult to beat when we go away from home as well. That'll be a big, positive step for us next year. If we can try and match that away from home, we'll be really, really dangerous. That's going to be something that we can build on.
This will add fuel to the fire for next week.
The players were desperate to get the win today, and I think that'll just make them even more determined for next week.
I'm really proud of the way the players have evolved this year as well, with a never-say-die attitude. We showed that again today, it didn't come off, but we've continued all the way through the game to get a result.
All that'll do is add fuel to the fire for them wanting to make sure they get a result next week and finish with three points on the board.
