Manager Rehanne Skinner hailed her West Ham United women’s team’s perseverance to come out with a 3-1 Barclays Women’s Super League victory against Everton, and insisted her side wanted to give something back to the fans for their continued support.
While it has been a difficult start to the league campaign, the Hammers have always worked hard at Chadwell Heath training ground, determined to get our first three points of the season and not go into our shells.
After last-minute heartbreak against Leicester City last weekend, we were even more fired up for Sunday’s test against the Toffees and from minute one asserted our dominance in east London, producing a terrific performance.
The breakthrough arrived after half an hour played when Anouk Denton’s shot snuck past Emily Ramsey and it was soon two before the break when Amber Tysiak headed home Viviane Asseyi’s corner.
Shekiera Martinez netted our third nine minutes into the second half with her sixth goal in all competitions, meaning Katja Snoeijs’ 88th-minute goal was only a consolation.
The celebrations inside Chigwell Construction Stadium were fantastic and it was the perfect reward for everyone’s hard work and determination behind the scenes. Skinner expressed the delight for her squad and the Claret and Blue army at full-time, as her side ended a run of three consecutive home matches unbeaten.
I’m delighted for the players.
I think everybody's worked so hard and they stuck diligently to their jobs today. I think we were then able to show our quality individually in and out of possession. I thought we'd scored two more goals than we had because I was a bit obscured from the vision that I had, so I was celebrating two goals that didn't go in!
I think we were just really difficult to deal with in the final third and I thought we were just brilliantly organised out of possession, and everyone did really well with their shape.
The attitude from the players at the moment is just so determined.
I've been saying that all week, and actually since we’ve come back from the international break. I think it's a massive credit to the players for the way that they've been so resilient through this process. It's not easy when results aren't going your way, you can easily point fingers and things like that, but this group's not that group of people at all.
I think that's been the most impressive thing because they've picked themselves up. We've worked together, we've stuck together, we've made sure that we focus on doing the gameplan for the duration of the game, which in the past we've not quite done all the way through. I think that's led to us not only creating and scoring chances today, but also minimising what Everton have been able to do against us.
The rotations that they do in midfield can be quite difficult to deal with, but because of how well we communicated in the game and how assertive we were, we managed that really effectively. So, it's a huge credit to the players for such a solid week overall.
There's always people asking, ‘You're not scoring goals, what are those reasons?’.
It's not an easy job to constantly find the back of the net. Sometimes in games, if you don't get a lot of chances, you're expected to take one from having one for the last 60 minutes. That's really difficult for forwards.
But I think their perseverance and the work that they've done on the training pitch comes out on days like today, and this week in general. That's been a huge plus for us this week, to just keep chipping away. There's not been any panic behind the scenes. We know it's part of the process and it will come back on track. And this week, with nine goals in three games, is important for us. It's a real positive.
The people that we have here are really determined. They want to win.
We want to give something back to the fans who have been so supportive. It's been fantastic the way that the fanbase has grown for us as well. We know it’s been tough, and for all of us we've been trying to improve that, to give fans something to celebrate.
These three home games this week are always going to be a big block for us because we're in front of our fans and we want to make sure that we give back to them. They've been tremendous for us all the way through, even when some spells in games have been a bit of a slog, as you'd expect. We've come out the other side through the fans' support and through the way that the players have worked, and that's when you get your results - from sticking to the plan and making sure you keep working hard.
