ColumnMatt Beard on FA Cup trip to Bristol City, 2024 hopes and striving for consistency

I hope each and every one of you had a fantastic and peaceful Christmas with your loved ones and friends and are ready to go again in 2024.

We gave the players nine days off for Christmas and they had a good break before we returned to training on December 29.

Everyone is good, we are in good spirits and we had a good first week back, working on a few bits to tidy up on. It’s been a productive week.

• Get your tickets for LFC Women v Arsenal at Prenton Park on January 28

Gemma Bonner is back in full training now and she is fine after the nasty injury she got in our last game against Manchester United Women. We have been through all the protocols with the concussion and she is back to normal, which is fantastic for us and for Gemma.

The first part of 2023-24 has been very encouraging for us. We have improved in every area statistically, which we want to progress year on year. We know that we are not the finished article and we know that we’ve still got plenty of more work to do, but the signs are encouraging.

As I’ve said before, I think we could be a little bit better points-wise but we are 10 points better off in comparison to last year, so from that side we are progressing nicely.

We play our first game of 2024 on Sunday when we take on Bristol City in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup fourth round at Ashton Gate (kick-off 1pm GMT).

We have happy memories of Ashton Gate when we achieved promotion back to the Barclays Women’s Super League – but this will be a totally different game.

As we found out when we played Bristol City at Prenton Park recently, this will be a tough game. I’ve been impressed with them. They have settled into the WSL really quickly, they had a tough start but they have produced some good performances.

It’s going to be tough but we know on our day we can be a match for anyone so we want to progress and we want to do well in the FA Cup, especially after last year’s tie at Chelsea Women.

It’s not going to be an easy game by any stretch of the imagination but it’s a game we feel we can win and we want to progress in the tournament.

We haven’t played any friendly games leading up to this first game of 2024 because we’ve done a lot of stuff with the group – including 11-v-11 games – and everyone is fit apart from Yana Daniels.

So, we’ve been doing a lot of work on the training pitch and we are pleased with where we are.

We know we will be backed by our fantastic supporters travelling to Ashton Gate and we appreciate them so much and we are very grateful. But unfortunately at our last three away games we have had flares thrown onto the pitch during the game.

As the majority of our fans know, these incidents can be very dangerous for players and supporters alike, and it isn’t something we want to see at our games.

It also causes problems with additional time being added on while these objects are being removed from the field, so putting more minutes into the players physically isn’t ideal for us.

We know this is a very small minority and we appreciate the support but please stop the flares.

I also want to speak about the big impact our new training base, the AXA Melwood Training Centre, has had on us. It is game-changing for us. First and foremost, it’s definitely brought everyone together, and I’m not saying everyone wasn’t together before because we have been.

The players come in early to have their breakfast, they are interacting with each other in the dining area and things like nutrition help recovery. The players have also got the sauna, steam room, the hydro plunge pools etc.

The players have got everything they need to be able to perform at the highest level. We didn’t have that before, so we’ve got that here and everything is second to none.

The pitches are absolutely spot on and being here, with the history of Melwood, it does give that added responsibility to me, the staff and the players, and I think you can see that in our performances.

I would like to congratulate Sophie Roman Haug on winning Standard Chartered Player of the Month for December. It is fully deserved.

She has done a lot of unselfish work for the team. If I look back on our win at Manchester United, she was drawing them in and allowing space for other players. She was creating a lot for everyone. But that’s just her work ethic and the way she has been since she came in has been fantastic.

The great thing is she is still finding her feet here and finding her feet in the WSL, so there’s plenty more to come from her.

As for our hopes for 2024, we just want to continue with our performance levels. I feel we are playing well and, as I said earlier, statistically we have improved in each and every area.

For me now, I want us to get the consistency level in our performance week in, week out. So, not just giving one good performance and then the next one which isn’t up to the standard that we set ourselves.

The international players have had a lot of fixtures in this first part of the season, so it was an unforgiving schedule for them when you add in the Continental League Cup games as well. So for me consistency is a big thing now and making sure we continue to improve week in, week out.

We made a lot of changes in the last two transfer windows and now we are really comfortable with the squad that we have got, and I don’t think there will be any changes, to be honest with you, in this window.

We are pleased with what we have got, we have got competition for places and it’s really about making sure we have that consistency now.

Thank you for your continued support.

YNWA,

Matt

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

• Get your tickets for LFC Women v Arsenal at Prenton Park on January 28