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West Ham United return to Barclays Women’s Super League action this weekend, as the Irons prepare to face Manchester City at Joie Stadium on Sunday. West Ham manager Rehanne Skinner spoke to the media this afternoon ahead of the trip up north to face the Cityzens.
Starting off providing an update on Kirsty Smith’s injury status, Skinner said “She’s had an issue with her shoulder that’s been sorted. It”s back on track and she’s healing well, doing light training and should be back in training with us as normal.”
Skinner confirmed that the side have faced no further injury woes, expressing “After the weeks game, it’s only Katie and Jess (Ziu) who haven’t been on the pitch for us yet this season, we are good aside from those.”
Reacting to the midweek win
The East London side were in action in the League Cup this week, with a resounding 6-1 victory over Portsmouth as Emma Harries and Viviene Asseyi grabbed braces along with a second in two games for Riko Ueki and a first strike in Claret and Blue for Seraina Piubel.
Speaking on the confidence the win brings, Skinner added, “I think it’s really helped us to get everybody minutes and everybody playing in the same direction, playing in the same shape so they’re familiar with that.”
Skinner continued, “I am delighted with the goals, which were really good team goals too. The approach from the whole group was positive and the team are really together, supportive of everyone who is getting starting minutes and wanting everyone to do well.
I keep saying to the team, you’ve got to be able to impact the part you play, because if everyone collectively has an impact, you’ll always do better.”
Skinner speaks on defensive changes
In each of the three competitive games so far, Skinner has opted to use a back three, with Shannon Cooke, Amber Tysiak and Shelina Zadorsky taking up the three centre back positions in last weekend’s draw with Liverpool.
This formation change differs from the end of last season, when a back four was deployed by West Ham on a seemingly more regular basis in the closing months of the 2023/2024 campaign.
Speaking on the way she sets the Irons up, Skinner added, “It’s a combination of personnel and and ensuring that our set up and our structure play to our strenghts.”
The West Ham boss continued, “At the moment, it’s felt like the better fit, which doesn’t mean to say we won’t play in a back four because we want to have the tactical flexibility to change it up for each opponent and also have more flexibility for how we want to play.”
West Ham ‘have to stay concentrated’ in order to stop Manchester City
If there is one thing Rehanne Skinner will not want, it’s a repeat of last season’s meeting with Manchester City as they found themselves 2-0 down by five minutes at the Joie Stadium. The side now make the journey up north again this weekend, knowing that every single part of their game plan is going to need to be on point.
Skinner spoke, “Defensively, we need to keep working towards being harder to break down, more compact and putting ourselves in a position as a team not to be isolated.
When you get that right, you can be much harder to beat for teams with such attacking quality. You cannot get that right all of the time, but we want to do it as a collective, which will then give us the opportunity to go as one versus individually.
You have to stay concentrated and alert all the time, because one opportunity might be all it takes, but we want to keep building at the other end on how we are in front of goal, knowing we can cause problems.”
West Ham United take on Manchester City on the Barclays Women’s Super League this Sunday at the Joie Stadium, with proceedings set to head underway at 13:00 BST.