LFC WomenColumn: Matt Beard on trip to West Ham in Women's FA Cup and new signings

Firstly, I would like to say Happy New Year to all our supporters and I hope you had a fantastic Christmas with your family and friends.

• View the latest LFC Women ticket details here

We have all had a good break and I think it was definitely needed. We all needed a bit of a reset and to give us the opportunity to reflect and review the first part of the season, which we have done.

We have fed this back to the players on the areas that we need to improve and we know what we need to do. We know we’ve not gone from a very good side to a poor side overnight.

I’ve said it time and time again that we’ve had so many injuries to key players – and it has had a massive effect on everything that we have tried to do.

• Marie Höbinger and Sophie Roman Haug injury update

We know we’ve got a big month ahead of us with the Adobe Women’s FA Cup and Barclays Women’s Super League fixtures, so we need to have a very good January and early February.

We are looking forward to getting back on the pitch again when we take on West Ham in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup fourth round on Sunday (kick-off 2pm GMT at Chigwell Construction Stadium).

These are one-off games and we want to progress in the competition and we want to do well. This is the only trophy that we can go for, so we need to make sure that we do well and go for it.

We returned to training on December 31 after our break and the girls have trained well, working on a few bits.

We were meant to have a behind-closed-doors friendly at the AXA Melwood Training Centre on Sunday but unfortunately due to the weather we couldn’t play. But we will be well prepared for West Ham and we are looking forward to it.

In the FA Cup, anything is possible. At the end of the day we know we are a good side and we know on our day – I’ve said this a lot and I’m probably sounding a bit boring now – we can beat anyone, as we have proved over time.

It’s just really about, for me and the players, trying to get that bit more consistency. We have added to the squad at the start of this year, which will add competition for places – that is really important.

Losing Sofie Lundgaard so early in the season with her ACL left us light and for our midfield we have brought in two very good players that will create that competition in midfield. No-one is guaranteed to start.

We have young Zara Shaw, who has been playing well in midfield, so I have got a lot of tough decisions to make to add to that competition.

I am absolutely delighted to have been able to bring in Sam Kerr and Julia Bartel.

Sam is more of a defensive midfield player and is a Scotland international. She can also play a bit higher.

We actually tried to bring her in before she went to Bayern Munich. I said to Sam when we had the conversation that I think we are getting the best version of her now because she went right out of her comfort zone in going to one of the biggest clubs in world football.

So I think we are getting a better Sam than if we had got her a couple of years ago.

She had some ups and downs with the injury and then was not a regular starter, which she had been used to. I think we are getting a more rounded player this time around and I’m looking forward to working with her.

She will bring a bit of aggression into our midfield as well, which I think we’ve missed at times – stepping in and winning the tackles. Sam is a great addition.

As for Julia Bartel, well, what can I say? She is only young and has had a fantastic football education at Barcelona.

Having gone to Chelsea, it’s not really worked out for her so far getting into the team but obviously it’s a world-class squad they have.

There were a lot of clubs in for Julia but she will give us something completely different as she is so good on the ball, has such a good football brain and can use either left or right foot.

I just think these two signings elevate the squad to that next level in midfield and create that great healthy competition in there now.

Fuka Nagano has competition from Sam, Herby [Marie Höbinger] has competition with Julia, Zara has been doing really well and obviously we’ve got Ceri Holland, who is slightly different to all the others with her attacking quality.

Tactically, it gives us a lot more options depending on the state of games and there have been times in that first part of the season when we’ve only had two midfield players fully fit. So, this gives us great competition.

They are both top players who are going to improve our training day in, day out and the midfield.

Thank you for your continued support as always.

YNWA,

Matt

Matt Beard was speaking to Liverpoolfc.com's Steve Hunter

• Get the latest LFC Women ticket details here