Paul Konchesky has spoken of his frustration at seeing his West Ham Womens team falling to defeat at the weekend at the hands of Brighton.

Our Hammers fell to a 1-0 defeat on Sunday afternoon against Brighton from a second half goal by Kayleigh Green. Loss of possession from West Ham meant that the home side were able to seize the ball as Green headed it past Mackenzie Arnold.

Paul Konchesky spoke to West Ham’s Official Website after a frustrating game. A change of tactics and team still didn’t seem to have any results for the away side, as they continue to search for their first win in the WSL this year.

“Coming into the game, we really wanted to come away with some points because those that are around us are picking them up. We thought we’d be able to come here and get something but it wasn’t to be today.” Konchesky said.

“When you deviate away from tactics and the game plan then sometimes you’re punished and that happened to us today. We’ll learn from those mistakes for sure, and it gives us plenty to work on heading into the game against Chelsea.”

Brighton looked strong under new manager Melissa Phillips. The team were determined and set themselves up well, which made their goal just after half time not so surprising. West Ham had their share of chances, however it was just not enough and they weren’t able to take the all important 3 points home.

“You can see that in the way that Melissa Phillips set her side out today, they get themselves behind the ball and work really hard as a group.” he added.

The hammers next focus is their game against Chelsea on Wednesday 17th May, and preparations are well underway. Konchesky said that he hopes the extra few days will give the team some time to recover and prepare for the tough fixture.

“It’s never nice to have to wait until the next game because you want to put results right.” he continued “On the other hand, it gives you more time to work on the training pitch, and there’s things we obviously need to work on.“

On a positive note, it was a huge day for 16-year-old Princess Ademiluyi as she made way for her debut in the 82’ minute after making the move from the U21s. She joined the West Ham Academy aged 12 and has since impressed the staff gaining her place in the first team. Anouk Denton also made her first start for the hammers and looked very positive.

“Anouk up until she came off was really steady, you can see that she’s very athletic and she’s going to grow with confidence off the back of her first start.” Konchesky added. “It was a big thing for young Princess, and it’s a big thing for the Club I think. She didn’t look out of place out there and she certainly didn’t look 16-years-old. She’s shown that during training and I’m sure that she’s got a big future ahead of her.”

“It’s great for the Club to have a player that’s come all the way through the pathway. We want to bring good young players through our system and hopefully more will follow. That’s part of West Ham, we don’t go out and buy everyone, we want to develop our own young players and you saw some of that today.

Despite the outcome, the fans were definitely a standout and could be heard all around the Broadfield Stadium. It didn’t go unnoticed either as Paul Konchesky praised the travelling fans and spoke on how important their support will be next Wednesday.

“The supporters were fantastic, and we will need them again against Chelsea.” he admitted. “It’s great to have them down here supporting us and we’re thankful for that. Hopefully we can start picking up points for them when we go into the final three games.”

“We know that Chelsea will be a difficult game, they’re a top team. But we have a lot to work on, we need to be hard to beat and resilient. We need to get back to keeping clean sheets and the ball out of our own net.”

Written by Katie Vine