Julia Simic believes West Ham United were unlucky not to come away with at least a point from Sunday’s Women's Super League clash with Liverpool.
The Irons suffered an early set-back in the game after conceding to a Courtney Sweetman-Kirk goal on eleven minutes.
Simic’s side then spent most of the game chasing an equaliser, but Fran Kitching held firm in the Liverpool goal and, despite a flurry of late chances for the Hammers, the Reds took the points.
“We were unfortunate to concede an early goal because there’s always a gameplan and you struggle a bit when you concede early,” Simic told whufc.com.
“At the end. we didn’t have that clear chance, but we had more opportunities in the second half with the set pieces. We deserved at least one goal, but we were unlucky.
“We are still on a journey, we are still a new team with new players and we are still in a process. We had a bad game last week against Manchester City and we wanted to bounce back in a certain way.”
The 29-year-old can however see that the Irons are improving and there are things to be proud of.
“I think the way we defended, remained compact and showed a good face was good," she added. "Today wasn’t a bad game for us.
“Of course, our goal was to win at Rush Green because it’s our home and we like playing here, so it’s hard to have nothing, but our ambition normally should be to win against teams like Liverpool.”
We are still on a journey, we are still a new team with new players and we are still in a process
Julia Simic
The German midfielder is optimistic that West Ham can get back to winning ways against Everton next weekend.
She added: “Our goal now is to beat Everton. We are struggling a bit with the personnel situation with injuries, but we would never use that as an excuse. We have still have enough quality to win these games and next week should be three points.”
Despite the result, there were an incredible 1,966 supporters at Rush Green and Simic was thankful to the Irons fans.
“They were amazing. It was nice weather, the conditions were brilliant to come out with three points, but we can’t change it now. Our personality and character shows how strong we are as a team and hopefully we can win three points next week.
“It’s always nice to have [a large number of] fans here, as they can push you and it’s nice to look around and have a good atmosphere here, so hopefully they will come back again.”