ReactionGareth Taylor on 'good start', new signings, LFC Women anniversary and more

Alice Bergstrom, Vivien Endemann, Mao Itamura (two) and Izzie Breen were on the scoresheet as the Reds were victorious in their first fixture of the summer.

The head coach was able to field different XIs in each half at the AXA Melwood Training Centre on Saturday, with four new signings and several young players involved.

• Read our match report here

Post-match, Taylor assessed the game when speaking to Liverpoolfc.com, gave an update on an injury to Grace Fisk and reflected on his opening 12 months at the club.

Read the interview below.

On his reflections on the first game of 2026-27…

Just good to get a good start. I think what you look for is players to come through unscathed – I think pretty much everyone has. Playing 45 minutes is just a good starting point for the girls. Hopefully Fisky will be OK, I think it’s just a cut above her eye which she sustained in a challenge. I don’t see that as any reason to keep her out for the next week or so of training, which is good.

We scored some good goals. There’s definitely areas that we can polish up on, for sure, some good set-pieces that came in that we need to attack better. But of course, it’s really difficult. I think players want to impress in 45 minutes and you want them to play simple. But there were some good sequences. I thought Mao Itamura looked good, caused some problems for the opposition, linked up really well with Beata [Olsson]. So yeah, there were a lot of things to be pleased about.

On Itamura’s display and ability with either foot…

Yeah, she’s got the ability to go both ways. She’s tight and compact with the ball. A low centre of gravity, you see her on the ground a lot, coming out with the ball in clinches. She’s an exciting player. We’re going to have to be patient with her this season because we’re obviously going to lose her to the [U20] World Cup, which is going to be a bit of a frustration. We’ll lose her for those first three or four games. But we understand for her in this instance that it means a lot and it’s an important part of her growth within the Japanese nation.

Like I said, just pleased. We scored some goals, everybody came through unscathed. We move on to the next game now against Leicester and start to step up the minutes for the players just to build up what they have in their energy resources.

On Endemann getting a goal and Alejandra Bernabe supplying two assists…

Ale got into some good positions. There were positives. I liked Viv, the way she played. She’s got a real kind of a desire in her game to take on the opponent. We obviously have to be used to playing with someone like that, who always wants the ball, who always wants to take one-v-one situations. Sometimes we’re overlapping and crowding her space a little bit. She’s not always going to be successful, she’ll give the ball away – but I like her reaction, she really works hard to get the ball back. Her fitness output is very, very big; she’s a strong runner. She’s landed really well here, as have all the other players. She seems to have fitted in here well. If you see her and the way she is and the way she interacts with all the players, you’d think she’s been here for a couple of seasons. I think that’s testament to her, but also testament to the group of players we have here.

On the game being a chance for academy players and Breen showing her talent and scoring…

Yeah, absolutely. Izzie Breen did well. I think she’s benefited from being with us for large parts of last season, does pretty much all her pre-season with us. It’s a player that we’re excited about where she can go in the future, as we are with a few of the other girls who started today. They’re obviously really young, we’re talking about some 15-, 16-year-old players. They handled themselves really well. I think the more experienced players really helped them, which is good. So, yeah, the future is promising. But if we’re expecting these players to be stepping straight into the WSL, that’s a big push and that’s a big level. It’s a big step, but they didn’t look out of place and they’ll certainly grow from this.

On reaching his first anniversary as Liverpool head coach…

It’s mad, it’s 12 months. It feels like in some respects it has flown by, in other respects it has been a bit of a slog. I think where we are now, it feels miles better, it really feels different to what we came into last year. I think that’s just continuing to work behind the scenes to make things better, to improve the standards around everywhere and obviously to improve what we do on the pitch. There were certainly signs in that second half of the season that we started to click in a sense of the team we want to become. I think there’s a nucleus of players who’ve been here from the start of that journey a year ago and I think what they’re trying to do is really admirable. I think the way we’ve changed the style, the way we’ve changed the identity has been testament to them and how they’ve adapted to that and dealt with it.

Of course, we want to continue to strive and get better and improve on what we did last season. Fingers crossed, we will do. I think it’s going to be a tough challenge. You can see there’s a lot of growth in the women’s game and a lot of growth in terms of the financial side and the spends that have been going on, but we’re doing ours in a progressive way that’s trying to do it in the appropriate way, where it’s seeing probably something that others can’t see, signing players that probably others might not be looking at that we can see real growth in. We’ve done that well, coupled with the players that we’ve had in the building for a while, the likes of Fisky, Jenna Clark, Kappy [Cornelia Kapocs]. I think that’s really helpful.

• Buy LFC Women match and season tickets for 2026-27 here