Everton were held to a frustrating 1-1 draw against West Ham United last weekend after Toffees debutant Melissa Lawley equalised in what was a dominating performance from Sørensen’s side. The Toffees now return to Barclays Women’s Super League action against Leicester City this Sunday at King Power Stadium, seeking their first victory of the 2024/25 league campaign.
Everton manager Brian Sørensen spoke to the press before his side travel to Leicester to face the Foxes on Sunday afternoon.
Everton ‘going in the right direction’ says Sørensen
The Everton manager reflected on last week’s draw against Rehanne Skinner’s West Ham United, in what was his side’s second draw of the WSL season. Everton have now gone undefeated three consecutive games across all competitions, but Sørensen was fast to express his frustration in their inability to convert chances into goals.
“I think that’s where we want to be defensively strong and creating chances. It’s still about converting the chances that we have to be better at. I think we had more than ten good opportunities in terms of actually being in a situation where we could score goals, so it’s going in the right direction. But it’s something we know as a team that we have to be better at converting our chances, but we’re working on that and hopefully we can showcase this weekend that it’s starting to pay off.”
Continuing, Everton’s manager spoke about Melissa Lawley’s debut and her contribution to Everton’s first goal of the season. Sørensen commented, “We were missing her. It’s really good to see her back.”
He continued, “She’s been good in preseason. It was unfortunate to get an injury in the Liverpool game just before we started. It’s really good to see her back, and I think she came in with a lot of directness and she was one of the reasons why we came back into the game [against West Ham]”.
‘Every player needs to chip in’ urges Sørensen
Speaking about the lack of goals scored by his side this season, the head coach highlighted the positives of the players creating chances whilst also discussing the need for his side to start converting those goal-scoring chances. Sørensen commented “I think it’s about believing in what you’re doing and then trusting the process and just making sure that every time you step on the training pitch, you want to score goals. Then you build up that confidence.”
Despite recognising the room for improvement, Sørensen admitted “We also need to acknowledge that we play in the strongest league in the world, and that makes it harder. The teams are super well organised, they have extremely good goalkeepers, they have really good defenders.”
He continued, “Maybe we don’t have some of the players that the other teams have with super high individual skills, but we have a team and that’s what we need to rely on. Every player needs to chip in. It’s not just about our nine that has to score goals, but our winger, our midfielder, our defender. Everyone has to find the right moments.”
Everton prepare for a ‘tough job’ against Leicester City
Ahead of this weekend’s match, Everton currently occupy last place on the WSL table, and are one of four sides on two points. The Toffees and Leicester City will both be looking for their victory of the league season as the two sides meet at King Power Stadium. Sørensen stated, “We look forward to it. But I know how tough our job is going to be.”
Analysing the threat of the Foxes, Sørensen said “They are well-organised and they don’t give up a lot of space. So, I don’t think they are maybe so bothered about not being on the ball, it’s about being defensively well-organised. We have to break them down and we have to be patient find our moments.”
“It’s tough to play against these teams because we’ve probably been more on the ball, and that’s what we want to be but on the other side, it can be a bit harder to to then control it because it can be easily a transitional game if we’re not at the best. It’s going to be a tough tough game to go into.”
Everton will be hosted by Leicester City this Sunday in the Barclays Women’s Super League at the Foxes’ King Power Stadium, with the action kicking off at 15:00 BST. The fixture will be available to watch live on YouTube.
