West Ham United boss Rehanne Skinner addressed the media on Wednesday afternoon ahead of her side’s Barclays Women’s Super League meeting with Aston Villa at Villa Park this coming Sunday.

Rehanne Skinner first spoke in regards to her side’s heavy defeat to Manchester City last weekend, having fell to a 5-0 defeat at the hands of the firing Cityzens. Despite the hefty scoreline, West Ham found themselves in the game with good chances for long periods, but goals from Bunny Shaw (2), Leila Ouahabi, Laura Blindkilde-Brown and Jess Park secured a big win for the Cityzens.

Speaking on how the Irons look to bounce back, Skinner spoke “Obviously, the biggest thing off the back was to get a few things ironed out and cleared up in the way we want to move forward. Training today and yesterday has been great and we want to ensure that we go into this weekend, giving a better account of ourselves, which I fully expect.”

The Barclays Women’s Super League table is seen to be split in two halves- as the quality of teams that find themselves in the top half, compared to the teams that find themselves in the bottom half, differ greatly.

In this weekend’s clash between the two Claret and Blue sides, both Aston Villa and West Ham occupy bottom half places- Aston Villa 7th and West Ham 11th, in a very congested lower area of the table.

“It comes down to fine margins. If you look at the weekend- the difference is clear cut chances. They’ve taken theirs and we haven’t taken ours, so you could be in a position where it’s 5-5.

“Those are the bits that shift the landscape on you moving up the table. The other part for me and the bit we are working behind the scenes, is that the depth of the squad has to be really really key. Once we get some players back, we’ll be in a better situation but I think there are still quite a few missing pieces to the jigsaw.”

Finally, Skinner closed off the press conference by touching on her side being the only top-flight club not to play at the main stadium throughout their 2023/24 league campaign.

This isn’t new ground for The Hammers, with the club having only played at London Stadium once in a 2-0 defeat to her old side, Tottenham Hotspur, back in 2019.

With West Ham United due to play their final two away fixtures at Villa Park and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Skinner confirmed there is a plan in place for the club to action the side playing at the London Stadium.

“It’s a bit different for us as we’re the only side who don’t own our stadium, so with the local council it’s tricky to get the ground as freely as we want.

The cost associated to it is significantly different to anybody else. Obviously, the plan was for the team to play in the stadium, we haven’t as yet but it’s something the club is keen to really make sure we action and we’re definitely looking at doing that next year.”

West Ham United gear up to face Aston Villa this Sunday in the Barclays Women’s Super League. Proceedings will head underway at Villa Park at 14:00 GMT.