Marc Skinner says his United side can be more aggressive than we were in Sunday’s 0-0 draw with Spurs, noting that as something we can improve on in Saturday's clash with Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Reds’ hopes of getting into next season’s UEFA Champions League were dented with the WSL stalemate in north London, but finishing in one of the league’s three qualifying positions remains a possibility heading into our final home game of the season, at the weekend.
Skinner says United will need to be better against the Seagulls and picked out his side’s pressing efforts off the ball as an area we can work on, following Sunday’s result.
“I think Tottenham at times had a little bit better of the game than us,”the boss began, while assessing the game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with MUTV.
“Especially first half, we didn’t get the press right, we weren’t aggressive enough in that frontline and we need to be more aggressive.
“It pushes you up the pitch, gets your wingers higher, gets your midfielders higher, and look, we’re missing a few players today and it’s just a little bit of rhythm, people have come back in.
“But it’s no excuses - we need to be better than that and we have to be better than that against Brighton.”
MANAGING MINUTES
Positively for the Reds, we were able to welcome Anna Sandberg, Ella Toone and Ellen Wangerheim back from their injuries on Sunday afternoon.
The trio were introduced as second-half substitutes and, in his conversation with MUTV, Skinner provided some clarity on the minutes he was able to give those players, as well as Melvine Malard, who made a huge impact when she came on at half-time.
“Just so we’re clear, we got Mel for 45 minutes max, Tooney for half an hour max. It’s all medical direction and that’s right because they’re coming back.
“Anna for half an hour, Ellen for half an hour. Their minutes will build over the next few weeks and they’ll get sharper.”
“Maybe Teri [Elisabeth Terland] and Dom [Dominque Janssen] will be back in the next two weeks, maybe the Brighton game, but we’ll wait and see,”he also told us, before expanding on those players that have returned.
“But to have those players back, just welcoming people like Anna back and Tooney, it just gives you that massive lift. Obviously, Ellen’s played some of the season, more than them, so she's [already] been back.
“The amount of games we’ve played this year has been immense, and I’m really proud of the players for taking that on.”
RIVIERE: WE HAVE EVERYTHING TO PLAY FOR
In the context of the race for Champions League football, disappointment was a natural feeling on Sunday, after we only brought a point home from the capital.
The result means our goal to finish in one of the WSL’s three European spots is no longer in our hands, despite the Reds moving up to third in the table and a point above Arsenal.
The Gunners have three games in hand and, while league leaders Manchester City have enough points to finish inside the top three, second-place Chelsea opened up a four-point gap on us by winning at Everton, meaning we’ll need the Blues to drop points against Leicester on Sunday for them to be within striking distance when we meet on the final day.
Full-back Jayde Riviere is remaining optimistic though, and spoke with determination post-match on Sunday, underlining our intention to do everything we can in the coming weeks to qualify for Europe.
“I would say 0-0 was a fair result, it’s not the result we want obviously,”
the Canada international told MUTV.
“We know that these three matches were going to be crucial for us, but I think today, sometimes it just comes down to attitude. And I think that we have everything to play for, we’re a team that wants to win, so we’re gonna finish out the season hard and hope for the best.
“For us, all we can do is control what we can, and we can control the 90 minutes that we have in each of those games [Brighton and Chelsea], and that’s all we’ve got to work towards.”
Tickets for our game against Brighton at the Progress With Unity Stadium are available here.