ReactionMatt Beard: I'm really pleased with where we are in pre-season

The Reds' latest warm-up fixture ahead of the Barclays Women's Super League campaign saw them narrowly beaten 1-0 away at Manchester City Women on Saturday afternoon.

Despite the result, Beard drew plenty of positives from the runout, including a first appearance for summer recruit Teagan Micah in goal.

Read on for the LFC Women boss' post-match interview with Liverpoolfc.com...

On the game...

Defensively, really pleased. The press [I'm] really pleased with as well – I thought we put them under a lot of pressure. I felt we should've done a little bit better on the turnover – we had three or four really good chances when we won the ball on the edge of their box. There were a lot of good things to come out of it. We brought in seven players in the summer, so we've still got players that are trying to understand the positional play and the positions they're getting to on the pitch and being a little bit more patient with it. I felt we should have had a penalty, definitely, in the first half. We've looked at Natasha's goal that was ruled out – she was onside. There's plenty of positives. We still need to do work in the final third and I guess Sophie [Roman Haug] coming in will be a big part of that.

On the team's pressing...

The conditions were tough to play in today. Really pleased with the fitness levels. I think [the recent trip to] France has been a big help in pre-season. It's interesting. We conceded a lot of the ball to Man City but we forced them into a lot of turnovers. It's just making sure we get a little bit better on those turnovers and attack a little bit quicker. As I've said, we've got seven players that have come in, it's going to take a little bit of time for that understanding to really gel. We need to see Fuka quicker because she gets in great positions and we don't see it, and I felt in the second half we got her on the ball a little bit more. I think maybe a draw would've been a fair result but there are some really good learnings from it.

On Micah making her debut...

I thought her distribution was good. Apart from that, she didn't have much else to do. Apart from one save in the first half [from Rachael Laws], they didn't really create much today and I think that was down to our defensive play. We did speak at half-time about maybe being a little bit more higher and a bit more aggressive when we were in a deep block. As I say, it's going to take a little bit of time to develop and we've got another goal threat in Sophie. Mel Lawley is not far away now, so she'll be back in training in two weeks. And then we've got Jas [Matthews] to come back as well next week. There are a lot of things we can take from today, especially defensively. They opened us up once, which is going to happen in games, but I was really pleased with the defensive performance.

On the fitness of the squad...

We've got two more games – Wednesday and Sunday – and that's our last opportunity to prepare for Arsenal. Defensively great today; we need to make sure we tweak the final third and make sure we're a little bit more positive and do the things we need to do. Then hopefully in the next two games [we'll] get some positive results. But it's about the fitness levels, it's about the performance and the understanding. I think if you look at our pre-season last year, we had a really good pre-season in winning the games and then we struggled when it came for points. I'm pleased with where we are, really pleased.

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