Skinner: Chelsea are the hardest task in Europe

United travel to London for our clash with Sonia Bompastor’s side at Kingsmeadow this weekend, with both sides pitting their unbeaten WSL records against one another.

The Reds will be looking to build on our 3-0 midweek win against Everton in the Women's League Cup, with Maya Le Tissier's stunner ensuring the victory late on.

Ahead of the game, Skinner spoke to the press about injuries, overcoming a strong competitor and what it will take to do so in front of their own supporters... 

THE HARDEST TASK IN EUROPE

“I think to say it's a must-win against a team that have not lost a game and played the way they have - it's just a bit overreaching. It's a want to win for sure. It's a focus to try and do everything we can to win, but this is probably the hardest task in Europe right now. We know what we're going to face. We're going to go into it very positively. We're going to go into it with the best plan that we can. There's confidence - we're the two unbeaten teams and that might fall on Sunday, but we're going to do everything we can in order to do that. It's a very tough ask and we're going to give absolutely everything in order to try and win the game.”

OUR SET PIECES ARE A THREAT

“If you create minimal chances, then you've got to make sure that youmaximise the quality in those moments, and we have to do that. I think we've been good at that. I think we have real threats from set pieces. What I'd like to see in this game, though, is a bit of a balance. I don't want to see just smash and grab trying to get to corners to win the game. I think it’s part of the game but actually, there are times in this game that we're going to have to defend really effectively.

“We're also going to have to attack really effectively, and we're going to have to run at Chelsea. We're going to have to make them defend. When I've seen games where they've been vulnerable, it's when you have to make them defend.There's got to be a balance in this game. My teams will give absolutely everything we can to try and find a way to unlock Chelsea and do what other teams haven't done so far.”

WE NEED TO RAMP UP ANOTHER LEVEL

“I've seen loads of progress, I really have. Against Villa, we weren't ourselves, we weren't near our qualities and we did drop points. But from our perspective in most of the games, we performed pretty well and so we've built this good momentum. We've had two good performances this week. We know it ramps up again [to a] totally different level. This is no disrespect to the teams we just played at all but we're playing the champions and we're playing them at home and they've had a fantastic start. So this is a tough one. We've got to be prepared to do everything we can in order to try and disrupt it to win the game. So all in all, it's been a good block but we we know that this is another ramp-up and another extremely high challenge.”

WE HAVE TO MAKE QUALITY MATTER

“I think in reality [I’d like to see] more consistency of what we've been building. I've been really happy with our commitment to what we've done. I've been really happy with our defensive displays. I want to continue to grow this attacking prowess. It's been better in the last two games. We've got to make the quality matter when we get it. I think it's that attacking phase. It's getting back to us being aggressive at the right times and I think that I've been happy with that and I want to see that continue to improve.”

TEAM NEWS

"Elizabeth [Terland] in the game against Leicester had felt a little bit of groin tightness so she's missed the game midweek. She will potentially miss the game this weekend as well but we're hopeful it's not a long-term thing. Hopefully after the international break, she could come back andshe'd be fit and healthy. Apart from that, we’re waiting on an assessmentof Aoife Mannion. Ella's out for a sustained period of time, but apart from that, I think everybody's healthy and up for selection for the game. We welcomed Leah [Galton] back. We've got minutes in the legs for returning players.

“I think we've got three games [after the international break] before Christmas time. There's always the hope [Ella Toone might be back]. But I think what you do is you balance those inflexions and you go, right, if we can get it back, we'll get it back but we're just not going to rush her in this moment because it's a calf injury. It's your running mechanism so if we injure the running mechanism it just affects the longer term. The projection is she misses the international window, and probably misses the first game after that and then we'll see from there. Because it's such a short block with only three games we'll assess whether it's worth that or actually resetting to come back after Christmas.”