ReactionMatt Beard: Positives and lessons to take away from Leicester tie

The Reds’ first fixture of the group stage ended in a 2-1 defeat at Pirelli Stadium on Wednesday evening, with Natasha Flint’s second goal in as many games sandwiched by efforts for the hosts from Aimee Palmer and Hannah Cain.

Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com post-match, Beard analysed the encounter, which saw him rotate the squad ahead of this Sunday’s Merseyside derby against Everton Women at Anfield.

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Read the manager’s reaction below…

On his assessment of the game overall…

I’ll start with the positives. I felt it was a great response to the [first Leicester] goal. Really pleased we’ve got minutes into players tonight. I thought the goal was excellent, obviously the way Mia [Enderby] lost Green and again another great finish from Flinty, which is good, we’re getting that little bit of consistency in there.

I was a little bit disappointed with our use of the ball at times. Leicester are aggressive, they put you under pressure and I felt we either had that extra touch when we didn’t need it, or we didn’t get into positions we needed to get into as the ball is travelling. And I feel at times we could have bypassed the press if we had recognised the pictures. I think the biggest thing for me is we need to make sure we stick to the principles of our play, and I feel second half we lost our way a little bit when we were chasing the game.

But, as I say, the key thing tonight was to keep everyone fit, healthy. The key thing was to obviously get minutes into players that need the minutes, so there’s some good things that have come out of tonight. I just said there, we don’t like losing games and it’s a feeling we haven’t felt so far this year. Hopefully that can now be a motivation obviously for Sunday to make sure we do the basic principles of our game.

On Lucy Parry’s performance at full-back…

Yeah, I thought Paz was excellent. She played right-back, left-back – well, wing-back. I thought second half especially she was excellent going forward. So, yeah, really, really pleased. As I say, we had to protect players tonight minutes-wise, we had planned subs. So from that side, the important thing tonight was that we got everyone through fit and healthy. And secondly, we’ve got the minutes into the players who need minutes.

On attentions now turning to Sunday’s WSL derby at Anfield…

Of course, we’re really looking forward to it. We’ve worked incredibly hard over the pre-season, we’ve given ourselves a great start in the league. We’re really looking forward to it. There’s plenty of learnings from tonight which we can take into Sunday, which is great.

The big thing for me is, when you do rotate and you make seven changes like we’ve done tonight, there is going to be a little bit of teething problems in those situations because obviously you’re building relationships. Even though a lot of them play together day in, day out, it’s different when you’re playing against opposition live etc. So, there’s plenty of learnings for tonight and we can take them definitely into Sunday.