Marc Skinner explained the unusual attacking-midfield role Elisabeth Terland was asked to play in Sunday’s Subway Women’s League Cup defeat to Chelsea was a deliberate tactic to create “overloads”
centrally.
It was expected beforehand that Teri might lead the line in the no.9 position, with Ellen Wangerheim out wide, a position she’s played a number of times since arriving in January.
But Terland actually operated just behind Wangerheim, and the Norwegian had a number of opportunities to shoot at goal – including bringing a save out of Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton in the opening two minutes of the final in Bristol.
She narrowly missed the target on another occasion, before forcing a second save from Hampton and later clipping the woodwork.
“Ellen’s a slightly different forward to Elisabeth and to Lea [Schuller]. She has the ability to spin into channels [and] run. I wanted to create space for pocket play as well,”
Skinner explained in his post-match press conference.
With Jayde Riviere only just back from injury and Anna Sandberg still sidelined, United were also lacking natural attacking width from the full-back positions, further prompting the reshuffle.
“I think our service up to that point maybe lacked a little bit and we’ve swapped Jess [Park] and Melvine [Malard] to create different kind of inversions,” the boss continued.
“But I think, welcoming Jayde back as she builds [fitness], Hanna [Lundkvist] is really good at going forwards, Anna [Sandberg] as well… we’re kind of missing our invasion on the sides as well.
“So I think it was much more about trying to push their line back centrally to be able to get some overload in the midfield, to be able to play a little bit, which is where kind of Teri got her shots from and so on. That was the rationale behind it.
“The reality is, if we’re not going to service Teri and Lea [Schuller] in the box, you’re probably not going to get the best out of them anyway. So it’s just about understanding how the game might look in the first phase. But we always had the changes in mind and how we thought the game might go.”
‘A SENSE OF FRUSTRATION’
The scoreline read 2-0 in Chelsea’s favour, but there was a feeling that United didn’t deserve that, having had chances and been sucker punched by two opportunistic goals from the ruthless Blues.
“I felt that between the boxes we were better with the ball,”
Skinner reflected. “But [Chelsea] are the best at finishing half-chances, so we’ve given them the game in that sense.
“I think, overriding, just a sense of frustration and we created chances that another day we score.
“I’ve got to find out what is the missing piece in these finals, because between the boxes builds you to the moments, but we’ve got to take the moments. I think tonight will be a busy time for my head to think about how we can do different in these bigger games.”