Rehanne Skinner says that her West Ham side gave away too many ‘cheap goals from winning positions’ to expect to win on Sunday.
Liverpool twice came from behind with goals from Mia Enderby and Beata Olsson keeping a Liverpool side, down to 10 players from the 24th minute in the game. West Ham had twice taken the lead through Riko Ueki and Ffion Morgan but failed to manage the match well enough to secure all three points in the WSL.
Rehanne Skinner spoke exclusively to The Halfway Line following her side’s 2-2 draw with Liverpool at the Chigwell Construction Stadium.
Rehanne Skinner says West Ham gave away lead ‘too cheaply’
With the point, West Ham have avoided being plumb last at Christmas. Yet with three within reach, it was a bitter pill for the Hammers to swallow and Skinner gave us her assessment on the match,
“I thought we started the game pretty well” Skinner remarked.
“I thought we had some really good spells of possession, and we created some chances which we should have scored.
“First half, a big chance that we created from the right hand side for Vivi (Viviane Asseyi) and I think we obviously got ourselves ahead twice, and unfortunately, we weren’t able to hold on to that.
“And those are really key moments for us to take some pressure off ourselves when we are when we scored from kick off, we obviously let ourselves down because we weren’t switched on to manage that, and conceded very quickly.
“And then when we scored the second goal, obviously we worked really hard for the goal. We had a lot of good chances and box entries, crosses with dominating the game, and then we just allowed Liverpool higher in the press and just overplayed.
“And then basically that then allowed for some, a bit of a momentum shift and set plays for them. And yeah, we just, we’ve just given some things away too cheaply today that have led to us conceding two goals.”
“We have to be be better from winning positions. It’s difficult when obviously [we have] not been in that position lots, but when we’ve been in drawing positions, we’ve given away cheap goals, and when we’ve been in winning positions we’ve given away cheap goals.
And you know, it’s just not good enough, like we have to be better to manage that part of the game. It’s as simple as that.”
Rehanne Skinner celebrates Riko Ueki’s ‘timing’
Riko Ueki has now scored a goal on each of Liverpool’s last three visits to West Ham in the WSL in the last three seasons. Ueki had an impressive match, topped off by her flicked header at the near post,
“Her timing was very good, obviously, the delivery was really good as well” Skinner said of Ueki’s goal.
“And she just has a real knack for being able to get into those areas. She is effective for us in set plays to defend those sort of areas as well, because [of] her aerial abilities. Just a really, really fantastic header. Really glad for her to get a goal today.”
Rehanne Skinner ‘disappointed’ not to take three points
In Rehanne Skinner’s pre-match program notes she noted that she wanted to build on positive home performances against Leicester and Everton. The Halfway Line asked if she felt her side had done that today,
“I think we’re disappointed not to take three points” Skinner lamented.
“You know, we’ve gone ahead twice. Liverpool are down to 10. We’ve got to be seeing that game out. A point is important in the league, we know that but yeah, look, you know, we should be disappointed to not take three points today, and we are.”
