Liverpool manager Matt Beard said that his side’s 1-0 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium this afternoon was not down to luck.
The Reds put in a hard-working performance as they stunned The Gunners on the opening day of the new Barclays Women’s Super League season.
Liverpool were defensively sound throughout the 90 minutes and when speaking to WSL Full-Time after the match, manager Beard said that his side got what they thoroughly deserved.
“Defensively, we were outstanding today,” Beard said. “People might say that we were lucky but we weren’t, we put our bodies on the line, made great saves when we needed to, so I was really pleased with that.
“Lawsy (Rachael Laws) was outstanding today. She has had such a good pre-season and I think that showed.”
Liverpool’s back-three of Jenna Clark, Gemma Bonner and Grace Fisk threw themselves into tackles and in front of shots all afternoon. Beard said that the club have put a lot of work into their defensive structure during pre-season.
He said “We’ve done a lot of work tactically, a lot of that goes into pre-season. What we’ve tried to do this year is simplify things and make it more consistent.
“We’ve done a lot of work on distances, defending crosses because that’s where the majority of goals come from in the WSL. We’ve looked at statistics, where the goals come from and goalkeepers’ positioning. We’ve done a lot of work on how to stop conceding goals and how to score goals; there was a bit of a shift last year with goals coming from open play.
“We wanted to give ourselves the best possible chance of winning games. We’ve done a lot of work on that to ensure that we win games.”
Liverpool arrived in North London without a handful of long-term absentees and having spent the week trying to contain a COVID-19 outbreak. Beard was delighted to be able to end the week with a huge positive.
“Yeah, it’s been a tough week for sure but I just think we showed the togetherness of the group today,” the Liverpool boss said.
“Even my assistant Amber (Whiteley) fell ill last night. After the way that the week has been, you just knew it was going to happen. We lost Jas (Matthews) and Yana (Daniëls) Friday-Saturday, Flinty (Natasha Flint) had been ill with COVID, Taylor (Hinds) was ill with COVID and Sophie (Roman Haug) was a nose and face fracture.
“All things considered, it has been a challenging week but a great end to it.”
Liverpool return to action next Sunday when Aston Villa are the visitors to Prenton Park.
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