Beard Report: “Plenty Of Learnings From Today”
The Liverpool FC Women’s team manager felt his side took a good bit of positives away from their 2-1 preseason loss to Manchester City.
Matt Beard felt there were some good takeaways from the Liverpool FC Women’s 2-1 preseason loss to Manchester City on Saturday. Despite the result, the Liverpool manager said his squad learned a lot from the match, and looked quite good in the first half despite not taking as many chances on the ball as he would have hoped.
“There’s definitely plenty of learnings from today, which I think is vitally important. The first half I thought we were good, especially out of possession, but in possession we could have been a bit braver. But, if I look at the balance of the first half, we created two or three really good chances and then got our noses in front just before half-time to go 1-0 up, which I thought was deserved.”
As is often the case during preseason matches, a raft of changes were made at the half, which lead to some disjointed play as the squad settled in. Beard felt that directly contributed to the first Manchester City goal.
“Second half, when you make a lot of changes you become a bit disjointed. City’s first goal is probably my fault because we should have dealt with the long ball, and the second goal I thought it was a foul on Gemma [Evans], but I need to look back on that. We then had a couple of good chances after that to maybe get back in the game. I thought there were some good individual performances [and it’s more] minutes in the tank. The learnings are important. There’s much we can take from our out-of-possession performance and we just need to tweak one or two things, but overall this has been a good exercise.”
Liverpool’s goal came courtesy of last season’s standout player, Marie Höbinger. The Austrian midfielder found the net from the top of the box after receiving a pass from new signing Cornelia Kapocs. Matt Beard feels Höbinger will again be a key part of Liverpool’s side as they look to increase their offensive output.
“What she gives us going forward, especially with her forward passing and the technique of her strike, is fantastic. She is an important player for us, she proved that last year.”
A typically classy finish from Marie Höbinger pic.twitter.com/aelt1dG2zN
— Liverpool FC Women (@LiverpoolFCW) September 8, 2024
Liverpool have one more friendly to go before the season officially kicks off. The Reds will host their first match at their new ground, St. Helen’s Stadium, when they take on local rivals Everton next weekend. Beard is excited for the opportunity to get some last details sorted out ahead of the season. He also mentioned that is has been a difficult preseason with key players missing for international duty and through injury. He revealed that Grace Fisk is still working her way back to fitness.
“We know we are a good side. I think our pre-season has been a bit disjointed but we are pleased with where we are right now and we’ve got a big week next week when we play for the first time at our new home ground in St Helens. It’s a derby against Everton, albeit in a friendly, but we’ve got an important week to make sure we fine-tune some of the learnings from today. We’ve still got Olivia Smith, who is away with Canada, and Grace Fisk to come back, so there’s more players to come back into the side so we are building an exciting young team.”
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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