Skinner: Our concentration has improved

A first-half header from Nikita Parris was enough to seal the three points for the Reds at the King Power Stadium, maintaining our 100 per cent record in the league this season.

Despite Leicester applying pressure in the second period, the United Women head coach was pleased with the professionalism of his side to see out the win.

“We know that goals win games, but clean sheets can win titles,” he said. “We know that, and we pride ourselves on that, and so we’ve got to be very clean in both boxes. We want to be deadly in [their box], and deadly in ours.

“It helps when you have Mary [Earps] and Baggers [Sophie Baggaley] behind you, but what I need is [for us to] stay focused in the moments we can.

“Defend the box from different threats that [we] are going to come up against us, but it’s concentration mostly, and I felt that we are getting a lot better at that.”

Skinner wasn't pleased with the level of performance from his side on Sunday, against the side who are currently rooted to the bottom of the WSL table.

But while acknowledging that the Reds could have been better, he feels his side never looked troubled by the hosts’ efforts to get an equaliser.

“I’m proud,” he said. “I’ve [admitted] that it wasn’t our best performance, we know that. We want to score more goals, we know that. 

“But I felt that last year we would draw that game, or we’d let a moment of sloppiness in, whereas I felt we were pretty solid today.

“All in all, I’m happy that we’ve won the game and we’ve done enough to win the game today.

“It wasn’t vintage us today, but it was efficient us, and we needed that to get the points.”