Shannon Cooke spoke to West Ham TV last Saturday following the loss against Chelsea as she believes that the team are moving forward positively under new manager Rehanne Skinner.

The hammers fell to a 2-0 defeat against the reigning WSL Champions as Sam Kerr and Erin Cuthbert gave their team the lead at Kingsmeadow last weekend.

Despite the score line, West Ham produced a strong performance with many positives for the 23-year-old and her team to take away. Emma Harries, Viviane Asseyi and Riko Ueki made up the front three, causing many problems for the blues.

Cooke was part of West Ham’s defence and has appeared in every game so far under Skinner as she believes the team are making heaps of progress in comparison to the poor end of last season.

“We obviously don’t like losing, but there are positives to take from tonight” she explained.

“I think we’ll go back to the drawing board; there were times we were playing round them really well. We created some great chances and I think we were difficult to break down. But ultimately, it’s a game of 90 minutes and if you make a couple of mistakes and they’ll capitalise on that, which is what they did.

“I don’t think we deserved to lose two nil. Like I said, it’s a game of 90 minutes and you make a couple of mistakes and they capitalised on it because of the quality that they have.

“I think we had some great chances that we will work on putting in the back of the net, and then obviously just tightening up on those couple of mistakes for the goals. But I think overall, it was a positive performance, and we did do some really positive things.”

With many changes coming into place since the appointment of Skinner, the team are determined to get back to winning ways. The hammers had a great start to their Conti Cup campaign with a win against Charlton Athletic and similarly looked strong in their victory against Brighton a few weeks ago.

“I think since Rehanne has come in, it’s obvious what we’re trying to do. Everyone is on board, and everyone’s buying into that, which is ultimately only going to make us successful.” Cooke added.

“I think we got a glimpse of that tonight, and then last week against Brighton as well. So hopefully things will only continue to improve the more matches that we play.

“We want to be a side that gives everything. We spoke about it a lot in the changing room about who we want to be and the identity of this team. And hard work is one of them.

“I think that’s something that you can control. You can’t necessarily control everything and the game of football, but your individual and your team hard work and effort is definitely something you can control. So, we look to do that.”

West Ham are back at the Chigwell Construction Stadium this Sunday as all attention turns towards their fixture against Liverpool before the international break. Cooke hopes that the team can bring these positives into the next game and take away the three points.

“Heading into Liverpool, we know that not only do we have positives to take into the game, but we also know that we’ve got confidence in trying to play and from the back and through the thirds.

“It’s always good to know that you can still perform in a three game week, and we have to make sure that we work hard again heading into Liverpool and perform in a similar fashion to how we have this week.”

Written by Katie Vine.