A victorious afternoon for Manchester United saw them collect three points against Bristol City. A Lisa Naalsund brace saw Manchester United win 2-0 against the Robins, marking the Norweigan’s her first goal in the Barclays Women’s Super League.

Manchester United manager, Marc Skinner, reflected on Naalsund’s performance in his post match press conference, commenting, “I’m happy with our patience on Lisa, everyone’s like ‘why hasn’t she played?’ but as a coach you get a feeling of when it’s right. You come in and out of form but Lisa, she came in a winter window which is always difficult to come in, then she got an injury and we were fixing her body.“

Marc Skinner believes that this is only the beginning for Lisa Naalsund in the Manchester United squad, acknowleding her struggles with injury thus far.

He expressed, “I knew exactly when I saw Lisa play exactly why I wanted her in my team. She just has that energy in midfield and she’s got to do that more often because she can do that. She’s got a fantastic striking ability as well, she’s hit a left foot today but her right foot is fantastic and I think you’ll really enjoy that. I think you’re starting to see her come into her own. She’s a really important player and I’m really happy with her form up to now and I know there is only more quality things to come from her.“

Manchester United’s first goal came in the early stages of the game, with Lisa Naalsund opening the scoring in the 9th minute. With Bristol City focusing on a deep block formation, the Red Devils were unable to increase their lead until the 94th minute of the game. Skinner reflected on the tactical struggles his side had to come up against within the match.

“I felt sorry for the forwards a little bit because we couldn’t feed them enough first half so it was not on them for the changes it was about just trying to get a different impetus on the game.

I felt Zel [Katie Zelem] controlled it well from behind. I felt we limited them, I think there’s still a couple counterattacks that I won’t be happy with that we’ll fix. But apart from that I’m happy the players performed really well this week, and we take the result going into the Manchester Derby.”

Skinner reflected on the importance of their win over Bristol City, commenting, “I think it was a comprehensive win, it just needed to be done. We needed that, it’s two clean sheets back to back which gets us back in to momentum. I’m pleased with our fixes second half, I’m pleased with the players fixes, how they took to it.“

Skinner also addressed his positioning of Melvine Malard in his forward line saying, “She wants to play wide. She wants to be a wide forward, that’s where she sees her best position“

We have a ten in the higher pocket, she can unlock that, but what I’m going to encourage Melvine to keep doing is you’ve got to push line as well, you can’t just keep coming inside. So it’s just a little bit of a variance but look she can be deadly from that. I thought against Brighton she did it particularly well, but I felt Brighton came at us a little bit more.“

Speaking on substitute, Geyse, Skinner expressed, “She wants to take people on and we’re traditionally a team that likes to play the ball and invade, sometimes she does it and mixes it up for us.“

She takes on Napier, causes the carnage for her to foul her and obviously in the midfield as well she turns back to play and she can drive forward. There is still lots to work on with Geyse though, she’s still got a lot of work to do on the defensive side and for the team but that’s not a lack of wanting to that’s just her understanding of what Manchester United need. I just takes time but what she gives us going forward can also game change as well.“

Manchester United will be back in league action this week, as they gear up for a highly anticipated clash with their city rivals at Etihad Stadium.