ColumnMatt Beard on Bristol City win, Chelsea test and Taylor Hinds' century
In his latest column, Liverpool FC Women manager Matt Beard reflects on the 1-0 win at Bristol City and looks ahead to the home meeting with Chelsea next Wednesday.
It was a good win for us on Saturday, a good three points and the clean sheet was an added positive.
It was a tough game and I’ve got to give Lauren Smith and Bristol City a lot of credit because they are fighting for their lives at the bottom of the table and they did make it uncomfortable for us.
Even though I felt we should have had the game finished off because we had some good opportunities to do that, they made it a difficult afternoon. But the important thing was we got the three points – our ninth WSL win of the season – and it keeps us level on points with Manchester United after they were held to a draw by Tottenham Hotspur.
It was a fantastic strike from Marie Höbinger to win us the game and she has great technical ability with both feet. She nearly got one with her right foot in the second half when she hit the post.
Marie is a fantastic player and I’m really delighted for her. She has scored five goals for us this season and is an important player for us.
We should have won by more than a one-goal margin but I didn’t understand why Sophie Roman Haug’s goal was disallowed as, if anything, it was foul by the Bristol City defender on her own goalkeeper.
Missy Bo Kearns was unlucky with a great effort from a free-kick and Mia Enderby had a great chance as well. I thought Mia did really well, in the second half especially.
There were a lot of positives from the performance. We hadn’t played for three weeks and sometimes that can be difficult, and we changed our system.
We went back to the 3-5-2 in the second half because we just felt we were a bit too transitional for my liking and then we were in control all second half.
We had one lapse of concentration when Teagan Micah made a great save from our backpass and then we defended well afterwards. The team deserves credit for that.
We spoke to Lawsy [Rachael Laws] in the week leading up to the game because she has done really well this year for us, but we wanted to give Teagan a run of games to keep her sharp before she plays for Australia at the Olympics.
We’ve got three games left now, plus a behind-closed-doors friendly we’ve arranged, so there will be more games for her to play but I thought she did well.
Taylor Hinds could make her 100th appearance for the club against Chelsea in our next game on Wednesday May 1 (kick-off 7pm BST at Prenton Park).
Taylor had that big chunk out recently through injury, so she would have made 100 a lot sooner. But she has been a great servant to this club and I’m delighted for her.
We now have two home games back-to-back with Chelsea and then Manchester United a few days later on Sunday May 5.
Chelsea are on a tough run of games – what a great result they had away at Barcelona in the Champions League, so congratulations to them on that – so we’ve got plenty of time to prepare for this one.
As I’ve always said, we can beat anyone on our day and we proved that last season when we beat Chelsea at Prenton Park.
These are two tough home games we’ve got but also exciting ones for the fans, which will be great.
When we started the season our aim was to improve on what we did last season. We have already done that, so now we are focused on trying to secure that top-four, top-five spot. But whatever happens, this has been a successful year for us.
As I always say, this is a young team, so there is still plenty for us to do and the future is exciting.
Thank you for your continued support.
YNWA,
Matt
Matt Beard was speaking to Liverpoolfc.com's Steve Hunter