West Ham United Women’s manager Olli Harder was delighted with his sides performance after the claimed their first win of the new Barclays FA Women’s Super League season.
A brace from debutant, Tameka Yallop as well as goals from Claudia Walker and an own goal from Ashleigh Plumptre secured the victory for the Hammers.
“It was a really pleasing performance after a couple of weeks off; it was nice to see some attacking combinations coming to fruition. With Tamika and Yui available for us I thought made a big difference in terms of our creativity in the middle of the pitch.
“I thought the overall effort and overall performance from all our players really reflected the score today.”
Yallop made an instant impact on her debut, scoring in the first and second half of what was a fantastic performance from the east Londoners.
“Tameka did well today,” Harder explained. “She’s still doing the same things she has always been doing, making runs into the box, getting into dangerous positions, and for us that’s important. It’s nice to have her with us finally, a fantastic debut for her.”
It was another fast start from the Irons – which has been a similar theme in the previous two matches. And Harder was pleased that the trend is continuing.
“It’s been a big point for us, last season when I came in the team was always starting a bit slow and sluggish, and we’ve now grew into the game.
“We’ve tried to reverse that trend with our training methodology, with our planning in terms of how we want to approach games and it seems to be that we are starting the games more and more on the front foot. Hopefully that trend continues”
Harder was also delighted that Walker was able to grab her first competitive goal for the club.
“It’ll be a massive confidence boost for Claudia. For her, I think she works hard, does well at holding the ball for us and when she has an opportunity, she’s taking it and that’s important.
“It was a fantastic day today for her and she got her debut goal and 3 points on the board.”
Katerina Svitkova made her long awaited return from injury – after four months on the treatment table. And Harder was pleased to have the Czech Republic international back in his team.
“Having Katerina is massive for us,” he explained. “She has been working extremely hard to get herself back on the pitch, a very ugly and unfortunate injury she had last season which meant she was out for a long time.
"We all know behind the scenes how much work she’s put in to get back on the pitch, so for her to be out there today it’s a bit of a miracle. The staff have done well to bring her into the folds so really pleased for her.”