ColumnMatt Beard on West Ham win, Holland impact, Merseyside derby and more

I’ve always said we are a team that responds to a setback well and it was a pleasing win against West Ham as we got that FA Cup defeat to Leicester City out of our system.

• Buy tickets for LFC Women matches here

It was a good performance and I felt we were in complete control of the game.

The one thing we’ve got to cut out of our game is a few silly mistakes we made, which gifted West Ham chances and then their goal. I told the players after the game because Jas [Jasmine Matthews] made one in the first half, Grace [Fisk] in the second half and then Lawsy [Rachael Laws] that led to their goal.

That was frustrating from our end because we know against the top sides in this division on another day we are probably looking at three goals conceded. We’ve got to make sure we do the right things in those situations because there are times to play and times to stick it in behind and just clear your lines.

But I thought our performance overall was excellent and the only blow was Sofie Lundgaard’s knee injury. She has been so patient and football can be a cruel game sometimes, but she will be back and we are with her.

I was so pleased for Leanne Kiernan to get her goal – she deserved that! She has worked incredibly hard and she has had to be patient. She was out for 15 months and it was a process we were going through to bring her back.

She was probably ready to start a game before the international break but then she got the Ireland call-up and we would never hold her back from that. She hadn’t played two games in quick succession like she did, so that put her back a little bit from starting for us.

Her flatmate Ceri Holland deserves a lot of credit for her goal and it was a fantastic moment for her. We’ve had conversations about it and I’ve been saying to her, ‘You are going to get your goal, don’t worry about it!’

Ceri was excellent for us on her return from a two-game suspension and it just goes to show what she brings to this team.

What a lot of people don’t realise about Ceri is she does a lot of unselfish work for us. She makes runs in behind and creates spaces for other people.

To get three assists was fantastic and it’s not easy to do in any walk of life. Her deliveries for our other two goals were just world-class.

We knew we could score from crosses against West Ham and we had worked on it during the week, working down the sides and what area to deliver the ball to and making sure we had players in the box to get on the end of them.

Missy Bo Kearns came off the bench to score a great goal and I was delighted for her. Bo was very unlucky not to start the game because I thought she did OK against Leicester. She was excellent against West Ham.

That, for me, was Sophie Roman Haug’s best game in a Liverpool shirt. If I go back to the Brighton game when she got the goal and two assists, that was a really good display. But this was her best performance for us.

We’ve done a lot of work on her link-up play with Scott [Rogers] and Pottsy [Joe Potts]. They have been working hard with Sophie on that – when to flick it and when to hold it. Her aerial ability, we know how good that is, statistically it shows. And what a finish for her goal, by the way!

The different types of goals Sophie can score is phenomenal and that was a real tough finish because she saw it late. What a goal it was.

We now look forward to the Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday (kick-off 1pm GMT).

After they won at Anfield, we beat them at Walton Hall Park in the Continental League Cup when I was ill and missed the game that night. Maybe I shouldn’t go this time!

Everton raise their game massively for this derby and our form is good. The pressure is on them because it’s at Goodison. It’s a different pressure when you are playing at your main stadium and they only really play the derby at Goodison Park.

It’s going to be an interesting challenge. I know they’ve got a few injury problems but they’ve still got a very good squad and I think they have been a bit unlucky with some of their results.

It’s an exciting game and one we are looking forward to. We are confident and we just have to make sure we turn up exactly like we did in the Conti Cup game.

I am really pleased with where we are at. We’ve got 28 points now and there are still six games to play. With Arsenal losing, our victory got us a little bit closer to them.

We just want to finish as high up the league table as we can. We’ve already improved on last season and we had a good run in the FA Cup this year too. We used the Conti Cup slightly differently as we felt it would be great for the younger players to experience playing in those big games.

We had three north-west derbies against Manchester City, Manchester United and Everton, so to get those younger players like Mia Enderby and Sofie Lundgaard exposed to that really put them in good stead.

We are pleased with where we are and we’ve just got to make sure we carry on doing the right things.

As always, thank you for your continued support.

YNWA,

Matt

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

• Buy tickets for LFC Women matches here