Beard Report: “It’s A Big Three Points For Us”
Matt Beard and the Liverpool Women came away from Tottenham with their first win of the season!
After a rough couple of weeks, the Liverpool Women finally found a way to win, beating Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Cornelia Kapocs got her first start and opening the scoring with an incredible volley, and Marie Höbinger scored two - including a penalty - to lock down the win and the three points to put Liverpool in fifth place.
“It was like history repeating itself in the first two games where we’ve had really good chances to go two or maybe even three up today,” manager Matt Beard told the press post-match.
“We’ve shown amazing character. Tottenham are a good side, but for us to keep plugging away at it and get the three points – it’s a big three points for us.”
The Red Women have had a tough run of things, with only two draws on the books since the season started and a loss in the League Cup. They haven’t been able to finish the chances they’ve created and it was starting to look worrisome, that Sunday would just be another repeat of that pattern.
“We should’ve been two or three up with the chances that we’ve had. This is the problem now that the league is so competitive, that if you don’t take your chances then at some point you’re going to be under pressure. That’s happened today,” Beard added.
“It was important we got the three points because the girls have been a little bit up and down confidence-wise, especially in the last week with the way it panned out for us. It’s a big three points.”
Harder to contend with today was the loss of Ceri Holland and Sofie Lundgaard through injuries. Holland was unable to make the matchday squad and Lundgaard came off in the match after what looked like a knee injury, forcing Beard to make some shifts in shape and positions.
“I’m gutted for Sofie because this is the second time this has happened to her,” the manager explained.
“Ceri [Holland] is obviously out for two or three weeks, and she gets an opportunity to get a run in the team and the same thing has happened. It doesn’t look good. We take Sofie out and we had to put Jas [Matthews] in midfield and she’s more defence-minded, so we had to adjust slightly.
“We did think about maybe putting Fuka [Nagano] a bit higher, but we felt the way they were overloading our right side we needed to deal with that. We ended up changing to a 3-4-3, which I felt probably won us the game in the end.”
Hopefully it is not as serious as it looked for Lundgaard, as all preparations turn to Anfield and Manchester City next weekend.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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