Rehanne Skinner (Tottenham Manager) During the Womens Super League game between Aston Villa & Tottenham at Bank’s Bescott Stadium in Walsall. (Karl W newton/SPP)
West Ham United boss Rehanne Skinner says that her side won’t be doing anything differently as they prepare to face Liverpool in the Women’s Super League on Sunday.
Liverpool are currently bottom of the league, with West Ham just above them, meaning the clash will invariably be termed a “six-pointer” – crucial for both sides to win.
But when she spoke to media on Thursday, Skinner said she’s aiming to treat it as any other game.
Acknowleding that sometimes teams at the bottom of the table feel that they don’t get the rub of the green, she told SheKicks.net: “Ultimately, the best team on the day will win the game and we’ve just got to make sure that we do the things that we know we do well – but so have they.
“Ultimately, there’s lots of things that go on over the course of the season and sometimes you meet people at times where it’s in favour for you, but then the next time round it’s in favour for them – and actually, we’re probably both on an even playing field right now.
“So it’s just going to be a lot about the character of the team, I think, in those moments, in those difficult moments. I’m really confident we’ve got strong characters in the group that know how to get things done – and we just need to make sure that we turn up and do that really and focus on ourselves more than the game as such, if that makes sense.”
Rehanne Skinner: You’ve got to prepare the same
She explained: “I think every game you’ve got to prepare the same, otherwise you end up kind of creating a narrative about something that then just changes the way that you approach it.
“Sometimes it’s for the positive, sometimes it’s for the negative, then it’s quite difficult to work out which way it’ll go. So I think you often avoid doing that to make sure that we’re just focusing on the things that matter to us, which is every single week – if we’re relying on one game a season to get us points, then we’re going about it the wrong way anyway. Every single game we need to focus on getting as many points out of it as we can.
“So this weekend, that’s the only way that we can think about it. It’s the only way we can approach it really.”
