Viviane Asseyi says that West Ham United Women need to be more ruthless after their loss to Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.
Paul Konchesky’s side fell to a 2-1 defeat at Chigwell Construction Stadium, with Rachel Daly and Jordan Nobbs scoring either side of half-time, before Asseyi headed home on 79 minutes to set up a tense finale.
But the Hammers could not find an equaliser despite having chances to do so, as both Grace Fisk and Dagný Brynjarsdóttir went close late on. And so, Asseyi believes that the team have to find that clinical streak if they are to return to winning ways.
“I think that as a team, we can do better,” she told whufc.com. “We had the opportunity to kill the game in the first half with some of the chances, so we have to do that if we want to be coming out on top in these tough matches.
“We always knew it was going to be a tough game, but when you don’t take the chances, it becomes tougher.”
The chances in the first half that Asseyi alluded to should have seen the Hammers take the lead. The France forward was denied one-on-one by a superb save from Hannah Hampton, whilst Amalie Thestrup could not convert the rebound.
That largely was the story of the afternoon. The Hammers had five shots on target throughout the contest in Dagenham, whilst Villa scored with both of their only efforts on target. Both of the visitors' goals also came off the back of chances to clear the danger.
“Football is like this sometimes,” Asseyi admits. “Sometimes you go on a bad run and can’t find the back of the net as often as you would like. When you don’t score, it gives the opposition a chance, and that’s exactly what happened today. They took their big chances and we didn’t.
“We have to keep going, working hard to try and put our run of form right again, we need to do better in the games coming up – we know that will be tough, but we need to start picking up points.”
Asseyi and her teammates are without a game now until Saturday 25 March, when they travel to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on Women’s Football Weekend.
Whilst the forward admits that the wait to play again will be agonising, she does feel as though the extra time spent on the training ground will be beneficial.
“I think having nearly two weeks without a game will be good for us as a group. It’s tough as a player because you don’t want to dwell on a loss, but it will give us lots of time to prepare and work on things out on the training pitch.
“It’s a big opportunity [to play at Old Trafford]. It’s a really great stadium that is so well known around the world – we have to make sure that we give a good account of ourselves and are prepared for what we will face,” she concluded.
