Manager Rehanne Skinner has insisted her West Ham United women’s team have learnt a lot from our opening two Barclays Women’s Super League fixtures of the season, and will take those lessons into the trip to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday.
Back-to-back London derbies against Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal awaited the Hammers at the start of the fresh campaign, and Skinner has seen positives from both performances to take into Sunday’s clash at Crawley - both in her side’s defensive resilience and pressing intensity.
The Irons defeated the Seagulls, who are also looking to chalk up their first points of the season, in their previous meeting, securing a 3-1 success at Chigwell Construction Stadium in February - and Skinner wants the team to use that as a positive for the weekend.
Meanwhile, Skinner is boosted by the news that she has a fully-fit squad for the trip to Brighton, meaning goalkeeper Kinga Szemik is in contention to return to the side following her injury on the opening day of the season against Spurs.
Skinner sat down in front of the media at Chadwell Heath on Thursday afternoon to look ahead to Sunday’s game, and here are the main talking points from her media briefing.
We want to give a good account for the fans
Obviously we want to get points on the board. It's a long, long season, so there are plenty of opportunities. We're only two games in, and we just focus on the next one in front of us. I think we've learnt a lot from the last two games, and I think that helps.
We're trying to recreate the qualities that we've shown previously, and we want to make sure that we give a good account of ourselves for the fans and for everybody else. We'll just keep improving game on game.
There were positives to take from both games
I thought we were a little bit tentative out of possession against Tottenham. I think we could have put them under more pressure based on our capabilities, but we limited their opportunities in our own half.
Against Arsenal, I think our pressing intent was 100 times better. We just showed much more in the way that we know we can perform and the way that we can go about the game. When they score the goals with the quality they have, you have to accept that and move on pretty quickly. I think the game got away from us a little bit as it went on, but there were positives to take out of it in our structure and intensity.
I think we can create better chances
We're getting into good areas. I think we've just been a little bit hurried in the final third in our first two games, where with the quality we have, I think we can create better chances. That's a conversation I've had with the players. We're just rushing a little bit in those first two games.
But getting the ball from back to front, I think we've shown some really good quality passages of play, and I'm pleased with the set-up defensively. I think everybody's worked hard.
We want to maximise our own strengths
That’s [the tactical battle] the bit I really enjoy the most, to be honest, in terms of the game. It’s always strategic figuring out the things that you can do to exploit people, the things that you can do to nullify the threats, and how you can make yourselves hard to beat. You have to be on it all the time with your preparation and your detail. So it's a good test for all the managers and coaches, to be able to deal with that on a week-to-week basis.
I think the biggest thing for us is we're always trying to minimise what other people can do, but maximise our own strengths. For the players, it's about executing in key moments.
We created good chances against Brighton last season
We found ways to break down Brighton and to create good goalscoring opportunities [last season]. From a players’ perspective, if the scenario is the same or the structure is the same in the style of play, you can recognise and exploit things that you think are going to work in your favour.
We want to use those things to reinforce positivity with the players whenever we can. All of those bits add value to a players’ mindset and how they want to go about the game.
