Despite the loss, Rehanne Skinner is proud of the fight the West Ham women’s team showed against Tottenham Hotspur.
Losing to your rivals is always a tough pill to swallow, but losing in such a heartbreaking manner makes it even worse.
Grace Clinton opened the scoring for Spurs, but Risa Shimizu brought West Ham level shortly after. The away side would go 3-1 up but the Hammers showed admirable grit and determination to bring the score line to 3-3. Unfortunately though, it was not to be and Jessica Naz scored the winner in the 75th minute to take all three points back to North London.
It was not the result that Skinner wanted, or that the performance merited, but she was extremely proud of her ladies and rightfully so. “The way that we went about the game, the way that we played and showed resilience, grit, determination, as well as quality on the ball, I think it’s all a massive testament to the progress that we’ve made,” she told the official site.
“The result is disappointing for everybody because the players have given their heart and soul out on the pitch. I thought we did really well in terms of how we managed the opposition and how we limited their opportunities.”
“We have a massive positive in that we scored three goals today, coming from behind on a couple of occasions, which shows the desire and the attitude of the players. I’m really proud of them today.”
Over the past few matches, you can clearly see the improvements in the side – they have played well but they have just been struggling to score goals. The West Ham gaffer is hopeful they can use the three goals they scored on Sunday as a springboard for the rest of the season.
“I genuinely think we’ve got better and better at the resilience and our mindset going into games has definitely improved. I think we’ve learned a lot from the first half of the season, when things have gone our way and maybe haven’t, and we have to be able to be resilient in those moments.”
“But for the whole match today, we stayed the course and we kept to our gameplan and got ourselves back into the game. Even after the fourth goal went in for Spurs, we dominated, hit the post and should have got an equaliser. There are so many positives to take out of the game, but it’s literally just a couple of things that we’ve got to cut out that don’t give people the sort of chances that ended up as goals tonight.”
The Hammers face Birmingham in the FA ESL Cup on Wednesday, before a pivotal league game against Bristol City. West Ham are only above bottom-of-the-league City on goal difference heading into the fixture – it is the definition of a relation 6 pointer.
Unsurprisingly, the manager is eager for her players to head into that game with the right mindset and she hopes the new players will play a huge part in coming away with three points.
“The big thing is that we keep trying to make sure that the new players are gelled within the team and fit in as quickly as possible. They’ve done that and they’re working really hard.”
“Next week, we’ve got Bristol City, and so we keep chipping away at how we progress in developing the best way possible to prepare for that game.”