ReactionMatt Beard on West Ham draw, Höbinger and LFC Women's season so far

Having been in control for much of Sunday’s Barclays Women’s Super League clash and struck the woodwork twice, the Reds went ahead through Marie Höbinger’s low finish.

A third win in four WSL games looked to be within reach, but Riko Ueki pounced on a loose ball inside the area to make it 1-1 in added time.

It means Beard’s charges have collected seven points from their opening four league fixtures as the season now pauses for an international break.

Read a summary of the manager’s post-match reaction below…

On his assessment of Liverpool’s performance…

I think we performed really well, I think we’ve dominated large parts of the game today. Obviously we’ve hit the woodwork a few times, Mackenzie [Arnold] made a great save off Fuka [Nagano]. I just think it shows when you’ve got your chances you need to try to convert them. West Ham were always going to have a spell in the game. Obviously it’s desperately disappointing to concede in the 95th minute. But credit to West Ham, obviously they kept going, it was a great ball from [Mel] Filis at the end. Overall, we’ve performed really, really well and on another day we could have had another two or three, but it wasn’t to be.

On the key factor behind the Reds’ dominance for long spells…

I think they’re quite narrow the way they defend, so it allowed us to play round them and then through. I felt we could have had better movements, if you look at [it] with the change of movement, where we could have maybe penetrated them a few more times. But because they are very, very compact with their shape, it’s tough to play through them, you have to go round. It’s trying to find that way of when you do go round them, you can then get into different positions, which I felt we did well first half. They changed their shape second half and made it a little bit of a different game, but I still felt we did well.

On Höbinger and how she has settled in at the club…

Yeah, Marie is a fantastic player, can play off both feet. Technically, she has got a great strike on her – we saw it against Aston Villa and we have seen it again today.

On his overall reflections on his team’s start to the season…

Obviously the first two games were great for us, to get the six points. We were disappointed last week and we wanted to put that right today, I felt we could. It’s tough to get points on the road in the WSL. Seven points is a good reflection – I think we should be on more, personally, but it’s a good return for the first four games.