Following their early UEFA Women’s Champions League exit against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night, Manchester United’s focus quickly shifts back to Barclays Women’s Super League action this weekend as they travel to Walton Hall Park to face Everton.
For any side, the mentality shift from a UEFA Women’s Champions League defeat to an important league fixture can be hard to manage, but The Red Devils’ boss Marc Skinner believes that his side will be hungry to go again.
“We go from the Parc des Princes which is an unbelievable setting and evening bar the result, but if you want to qualify again for the competition, then you have to go to Everton,” Skinner said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “You’ve got to go there and try and get the three points.
“We can talk about this mentality, but if our players are hungry, maintain that hunger and want to get back to the UWCL, we’ve got to do better than we did last season and we’ve got to get back in that rhythm.”
Despite the result in midweek, Skinner is confident that his side put in a performance in Paris that they should undoubtedly be proud of, especially in the second-half. If they can keep that consistency going and turn the chances they can create into goals, then they can go on to win games.
“If we convert our chances created, especially the quality of them, then we should win the game,” Skinner said. “I believe this team will always come back in a game and that’s dangerous for an opponent. We know we’ve got to be tidier and more concentrated, but that’s part of growing up and growing as a team.
“The reality is that if we do fall behind in games, we have to get back into it. If you look at the way we play or have been playing, we’ve got a team that creates chances, so we should be winning these games. I want us to be more ruthless.”
Currently sitting sixth going into this weekend and with a point to prove, Manchester United have assessed their draws against Leicester City and Arsenal and have identified where they need to improve.
“If I look at every goal we’ve conceded so far, there are elements which we know we can control and we haven’t and that’s a factor of us learning together,” Skinner said.
“I’ve been really happy with our performances, but we want to win those games. Arsenal was a sucker-punch from 30 yards which was a great finish, but then I look at the Leicester goal and they’ve had four shots and two on target in the whole game. They’ve defended almost all of the game. We have the nature to be ruthless and that’s what I’m asking for from the players.”
Latest opponents Everton have struggled to convert chances at times in the opening three games of the season. Despite The Blue Girls only picking up three points so far, Skinner sees the Merseyside outfit as a real threat.
He said “When I look at Everton, obviously they’ve not had the results they would’ve wanted, but when I watched the Leicester game when they lost 1-0, they had an offside goal and they created enough chances. I think they missed one right by the goal and dragged it wide, but that’s a goalscoring chance.
“I know how Brian (Sørensen) wants to play; they’re a very technical team, they want to play, move you about and he wants to press. He’s got a very honest and quality style of play. I think they’ve got a few injuries which would probably affect what he would want to do, but we’ve got to go there regardless and put the midweek performance onto Everton.”
Manchester United’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Everton kicks-off at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.