LFC WomenMatt Beard column: 'Leicester loss won't define us - but we need to start better'

Sunday was super-frustrating and it was one of those days you sometimes get in football when you just can’t score.

We conceded to a well-worked set-play but from our perspective we have to be really disappointed with that.

We actually saw that set-play when Sheffield United did it recently against Wrexham, so credit to them on that. And credit to them for the way they defended, as they had a long time to hold onto the lead.

On another day, we could have maybe scored two or three goals. If I look back at the Yana Daniels chance at the end, Natasha Dowie hitting the bar and Missy Bo Kearns hitting the post from a good position, that’s three great chances for us.

I spoke with Yana after the game about that chance and she lost sight of the ball in the bright sunshine and just couldn’t see it, so I think that probably summed up the afternoon for us.

We also had numerous set-plays but for whatever reason it just wouldn’t go in for us. Sometimes that happens. What we have to do now is take the positives from some of the chances that we did create and the fact that we kept going until the final whistle.

It is frustrating because we did well against Reading and we had a really good training week going into the Leicester game.

They defended really well and they put their bodies on the line from Megan Campbell’s throws, and it just wasn’t meant to be for us. When Meg is on the pitch, you tend to find a lot of the teams that we play against don’t try to put the ball out of play because of that, so it was an interesting dynamic on Sunday.

From my perspective, it was a frustrating afternoon and we know we have to take these chances. It has been a bit of an Achilles heel for us over the course of the season.

Megan was excellent again against Leicester and she has done well this season.

The great thing for Meg is she has been consistently available for us. We’ve got her schedule right when it comes down to training and we’ve made sure that she is fit and healthy for the games. We have managed her knee fantastically and our medical team deserves a lot of credit for that.

It took a while but we’ve got the perfect balance now. People talk about Meg’s throw but there is more to Megan Campbell than just that. She is a good player and I still think there is more to come from Meg – which is great for us.

We have to be better at starting games a lot quicker and sharper, and we need to get to the bottom of our first-half performances.

We prepared really well and did a lot of work preparing the team with visual clips about how the opposition set up, but we did the same against Reading the previous week.

We need to get to the bottom of it because we can’t keep taking it into the second half of games, and we’ve got to implement it from the start like we did against West Ham in the WSL.

Obviously going a goal down early to a set-play will have an effect on the players’ psychologically – I understand that. But we have to start these games better and be more consistent in what we are doing.

We now head into an international break and don’t have a game for a month, which I find hard to understand.

The schedule needs looking at. We didn’t play previously for eight weeks and then we had seven games in three weeks, and off the back of that we picked up injuries.

We now don’t play for another month and it’s just tough to understand. This is why players are getting injured. I’ve got no idea why the schedule can’t be balanced, as it’s a long time with no matches.

The only thing we can say is it will give me time to get Shanice van de Sanden, Niamh Fahey and Emma Koivisto back available again, plus Carla Humphrey who had concussion in training, and Leanne Kiernan as well.

Shanice has been running again last week and she will be back this week on the training pitch. She will be another great option for us.

As I said before Sunday’s game against Leicester, that match won’t define us.

We are disappointed we didn’t win, or at least get a draw – which I felt we deserved – but you could see the commitment levels from the players, who kept going right to the end.

As always, thank you for your continued support.

YNWA,

Matt

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