ReactionMatt Beard on LFC Women's FA Cup victory, match-winner Bonner, Wembley motivation and more
Matt Beard was satisfied to see Liverpool FC Women advance to round five of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup but insisted there is plenty for his side to improve on.
The Reds defeated Bristol City Women 1-0 on Sunday thanks to an 85th-minute winner from Gemma Bonner at Ashton Gate, where they had been reduced to 10 players on the hour with Ceri Holland being sent off for a second bookable offence.
Post-match, Beard spoke to Liverpoolfc.com – read on for the manager’s assessment…
On his overriding emotion after the game…
Look, it was always going to be a tough game and a tough tie. I just felt, a bit like when we played them at home, we were just too slow with so many different things. We took our time to settle and get into the game. I thought we started the second half well and obviously the sending-off changes things. The players deserve credit, obviously, for winning the game after going down to 10.
Apart from set-plays, Bristol didn’t look like scoring and we didn’t look like scoring so we converted the one chance we had and obviously defended well, especially when we got in front.
On whether he felt Liverpool may always get a chance from a set-piece if they could hang on after Holland’s dismissal…
I think with Shanice [Van de Sanden]’s pace we could definitely hit them on the counter. They were committing more bodies forward, which left them a little bit more open, and I think we had some good opportunities on the counter, even when we went in front, when we could have hurt them. But the most important thing is you get through the tie and you get into the hat for the next round and we’ve done that.
On match-winner Bonner…
Obviously it was a good delivery going in and I felt we could have scored on the one that Ceri got sent off on actually. But Gemma is having a good season and she deserves all the plaudits she’s getting.
On the most important thing being the Reds’ involvement in the draw for round five, which takes place on Monday evening…
Yes, of course. We wanted to progress. Last year we played Chelsea, it was a tight game [but] we didn’t make it through. Obviously we’re in a good position in the league table and I know from my time at West Ham how this cup run keeps you motivated, keeps you going in the sense that you look at the final and going to Wembley and stuff like that. But it’s important that we got through today and we can just draw a line under it and move on.
On whether the fact this was the first game after the winter break affected the team’s performance…
It shouldn’t have, we’ve prepared the team well. We’ve had some good opportunity to work on some stuff tactically like we would do in pre-season. I think that’s my biggest frustration: forget positional play because I want the players to express themselves and I want them to be themselves on the pitch. Yes, we have a structure when we are building and playing but then once you break lines and stuff like that, players need the freedom to go and express themselves and I just don’t think we did that well enough in the first half. We were too negative.
We’ve used the two weeks, and we were in for a couple of sessions before that as well, I felt really well to really reinforce one or two things and it’s a lesson in making sure that we do get in the positions because we know we can hurt teams, especially with what we’ve got in the team. Obviously missing Sophie [Roman Haug] today was a miss but as I say, we need to do better with that.
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