Manchester United head coach Marc Skinner says that he will not rest until his side begin to win major domestic silverware.
Skinner’s first season in charge of The Red Devils came to an end with a 4-2 defeat at Chelsea this afternoon. Manchester United finish the season in fourth place while their wait for a major domestic trophy goes on.
Victory for opponents Chelsea resulted in them winning a third consecutive Barclays FA Women’s Super League title. When speaking in the post-match press conference, Skinner said that he made his players watch the trophy lift to feel Chelsea’s success whilst adding that he will not rest until his own team win silverware.
“I told the players that I wanted to build a red wall and that every single one of them had to face success because it has to burn,” Skinner told FAWSL Full-Time.
“We can talk about being lovely footballers but I felt that at times, they were better in the duels than we were. They had better physicality at times, more aggression at times and I felt that we mixed first half but I just thought there were moments where they tipped over the edge. You don’t have to be the biggest person in that duel but you have to win it. If you are going to do something, you have to believe it so I made my team face that because you’ve got to believe that you can come here and win the title as that’s where our team will head.
“We have got to apply ourselves properly and there are a lot of wake ups for us for next year because I am not resting until we are champions of something.”
Reflecting on the full season, Skinner said that he was proud of his team for their development and that there is a hunger for the club to continue to grow.
He said “I’m so proud of all of them, I’ve asked them to play a slightly different style of football and adapt and evolve. We have had many very good moments this year but slipped off with too many draws.
“There’s a hunger in them but everyone in life now wants a fast food fix, we all want to spend a bit of money and win right now, you do this and you want to win right now, I think we forget and neglect the fact that we can win in an instant. If a loss doesn’t burn and you don’t learn from it, you can’t really sustain that long term.
“The loss hurts today because I know that there’s a lot of fire in our team but we’ve lost to a sharper team, a physically better team in how they approach the game. They hunt spaces better than anyone in this league so if you make a mistake, they pounce on it. We need to improve on that area and if we do, I think we can beat this team tactically and technically.
“Chelsea have been excellent this season, they had a lot of fight against them but we have got a lot of fire left in us to burn for next season.”
Manchester United end the 2021/2022 campaign with 42 points from 22 Barclays FA Women’s Super League matches. Their final points tally is five worse than last season.
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