Lucy Graham of Everton celebrates scoring the 2nd goal Bristol City Women v Everton Women, WSL football match, Twerton Park, Twerton, UK - 06 Sep 2020 Photo: Paul Currie for The FA

Everton midfielder Graham says ‘top three’ no longer exists

Everton continued their perfect start to the new Barclays FA Women’s Super League season at the expense of West Ham United on Sunday.

Midfielder Lucy Graham proved to be the difference as she came off the bench and bagged herself a brace to secure a 3-1 victory for her side.

Speaking to FA Women’s Super League Full-Time about her side’s performance after the match, Graham said “I thought overall, the girls were excellent.

“There were spells in the game where I thought we could have done better. It doesn’t really matter in this team who gets the goals it’s a collective, and definitely a team effort.”

Although it may have been a group effort in the eyes of Graham, she was certainly the one getting the plaudits for her impressive display in during her 30-minute cameo. West Ham United made things very difficult for the Merseyside club and it was going to take some pieces of individual brilliance to break the deadlock.

“Games aren’t played on a tactics board or paper, so until you actually get out there on the pitch and you get a real feel for it, it takes time to work it out” Graham added.

“West Ham are a good side and they’ll take points off teams this year but it’s one of them games we’re going to look back on at the end of the season and there’s going to be a big tick in that box for us.”

The Blue Girls clearly know the significance of taking all three points from a match where they weren’t at their best and Graham knows that sides are going to bring their A-game when they play Everton from now on.

She went on to say “We’ve got targets on our back. We’re not shouting from the rooftops that we’re going to win everything but we certainly want to make it known that we want to challenge and we are here to make it as difficult as possible for these other top teams.

“There’s prolific teams in the league like Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, spoken about as the ‘top three’, now I think with the competitiveness of this league, there’s no such thing as a ‘top three’.

Although Everton have lofty ambitions of breaking into the UEFA Women’s Champions League places, Graham and her teammates aren’t getting ahead of themselves just yet.

“We’re very humble and we’re going to do our job with a lot of humility” said the midfielder. “It’s a long season, we’re under no illusion that it’s going to be a perfect season, it’d be stupid to think we’re going to have a perfect record so there’s always going to be little bumps in the road and it’s so, so important to bounce back especially when we have defeats.

“In the Man City game, we thought in large spells we played really well but when you’re playing five games in 15 days, it’s almost impossible to have the perfect record.”

A large percentage of Everton’s goals this season have come from the bench and on Sunday, Graham proved to be the latest ‘super sub’. This highlights a greater strength-in-depth at Everton this season but what does Graham make of the strength in numbers that her side now boasts?

She said “I think the recruitment at the beginning of the season is where it all stems from.

“In previous seasons, maybe Everton teams have looked at their bench or the depth of the squad and they haven’t had anything there.

“I think this squad is one of the most fluid squads in the league, there’s personnel you can chop and change all over the pitch.”

Next up for Everton will be another tough test against Hope Powell’s Brighton & Hove Albion, a side who are also proving difficult to break down so far this season. The Blue Girls go into that match in second place in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League table, level on points with Arsenal.

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