When West Ham United women’s team face London City Lionesses in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday, it will be the 100th WSL game Rehanne Skinner has managed.
It will also be Skinner’s 50th WSL match in charge of the Hammers, having joined the Club in the summer of 2023, and she will hope her side can mark her milestone match with three points.
In her pre-match press conference at Chadwell Heath training ground on Friday afternoon, Skinner spoke about how much the WSL has grown since she was assistant manager at Arsenal when the league formed in 2010.
Over the course of her past 99 WSL games as manager, Skinner’s hunger for success has always remained and she relishes the challenges that are thrown up as a consequence of the game’s growth.
The next challenge for her and her team comes at Copperjax Community Stadium in the form of newly-promoted London City Lionesses. The Hammers defeated the Pride in the Subway® Women's League Cup last season, but after Sunday's opponents made 17 signings over the summer, Skinner acknowledged her side will be facing a different test this time around.
Bar the suspended Inès Belloumou, Skinner has a full squad to select from, who are all brimming with confidence following Wednesday’s Subway® Women's League Cup success at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Friday 10 October also marked World Mental Health Day, and Skinner was asked about the challenges footballers and managers face, and how support can improve.
Improving game by game
We’ve had good spells in games. The better version of us was when we went down to ten against Chelsea. It kick-started the mentality we’re known for. Against Villa I think we did a good job again, just didn’t create enough. Our box entries increased on Wednesday night and bit by bit, it led to more confidence in the team.
One hundred games managed in the WSL
The way the game’s grown has been really positive. There’s been an increase in support around the players, although there’s still work to do. I had two-and-a-half years as an assistant manager before managing, and seeing it from the first year in 2010 to now, it looks very different. It wasn’t even professional at that point.
The biggest thing for me is that I love the challenge in the way the game has grown, the things you have to work on and constantly be ready for. Players’ professionalism has improved significantly, the way they can take on board information and action it.
Every day you turn up and you have to be absolutely at your best, fighting for everything, and that challenge is something I really enjoy.
World Mental Health Day
Everybody has a life outside of football and half of the time, people don’t pay enough care or attention to find out what that is. Everyone has a story behind the scenes.
With Mollie [Bartrip, at Tottenham Hotspur, who has spoken openly about her battle with mental health struggles], I tried to open the door more to do that with players, and being proactive with finding out more about each other. She (Bartrip) was brilliant with that, because she was prepared to be transparent. When someone shows that vulnerability, it makes people more prepared to talk about their own situations.
It's about having the people who are not uncomfortable with talking about things that are uncomfortable. It means people can share and realise they have more support than what they would have known if they hadn’t talked about it.
We’ve got wellbeing leads here. It’s something I’ve felt is really important. No-one’s in this league who can’t play football, it’s about managing the work-life scenario under pressure, and all the other bits that come with it. The more we can shine a light on it, the better.
London City Lionesses are not the same as last season
The more a new team (London City Lionesses) plays together, the more gelled they’ll be. We’re on our journey to being the team we know we’re capable of being, and we’ll take that into the game regardless of who we’re playing.
We played them last season, but they’re not the same team. It’s a new opponent for us, which is always a different challenge and it’s one the players are looking forward to.
Growth
We’ve grown tremendously. We weren’t defensively solid at the start of the season. We made some errors in judgment in key games which cost us goals.
We did a much better defensive job against Aston Villa. They broke us down with a couple of set-pieces, but not from open play, and then we made life difficult for Brighton. We absorbed a lot of pressure but stayed calm, concentrated and diligent. That’s the difference and that’s the step forward.
