Reaction'Wasn't like us' - Amber Whiteley's assessment of LFC Women loss at Arsenal

• Read our match report here

A run of three successive wins since Whiteley took interim charge was snapped as the Reds were beaten at Emirates Stadium in the Barclays Women’s Super League.

Caitlin Foord and Mariona Caldentey were on target for the home side before the break, sandwiching a Jasmine Matthews own goal.

Matthews then suffered the misfortune of a second concession into her net midway through the second half and there was no way back for the visitors.

Whiteley provided her reaction to Sky Sports post-match – read what she had to say below...

On her assessment of the game and any tweaks that could have been made earlier…

I don’t think we managed the distances well enough first half, you saw in the second half we were a little bit deeper and I think that helped us manage the space in behind a lot better. But I thought Arsenal were brilliant first half and put us under a lot of pressure.

On what her side ‘struggled to cope with’…

I think it was the distances, if we were a little bit lower we would have been able to manage the space in behind a little bit better. And then you’re in a better position to defend in front, like we have been doing so well in the past few weeks. Like I said, second half I thought we were a lot better at that and more difficult to break down.

On what she has said to Matthews…

Jas has been brilliant the last three weeks. Like I said, they have put us under a lot of pressure. It’s something we’ll look at and we’ll look to work on for next week.

On if she would have done anything differently in hindsight…

I think we just needed to be braver with the ball too. It wasn’t like us tonight, we didn’t look like we had the same belief going forward. When you defend for long spells and you’re under pressure, sometimes you get into a habit where you’re turning the ball over quickly. We definitely needed to be better with the ball tonight and look after it a bit better.

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