Kirsty Smith is looking forward to the 2022/23 Barclays Women’s Super League season getting underway on Sunday afternoon.
West Ham United Women have been handed what could be argued as the toughest possible start – a trip to face defending champions, Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Not only will it be Paul Konchesky’s first outing in the dugout after taking over as manager this summer, but it will also be the first competitive outing for Smith in Claret & Blue.
The 28-year-old defender swapped Manchester for east London during the summer and was announced as Konchesky’s first signing on 15th July.
Smith has enjoyed getting to know her team-mates and adapting to life in the Capital over the past six weeks.
“I’m really enjoying my time here so far,” Smith said.
“It was also going to be a difficult decision to leave Manchester United after being with the Club for four years – but I’ve found the atmosphere here to be great and actually very similar to what it was like at United.
“I can see that the team is making progress, and they want to progress even further up the table, which is exactly what happened at United during my time there.
“You can see that the Club has made progress – they did really well last year, finishing sixth and getting a record number of points in the process. We want to build on that moving forward.”
The defender enjoyed four seasons with Manchester United before deciding to make the switch South. Smith was heavily involved in their FA Women’s Championship title success back in 2018, and before signing for the Red Devils, she won the Scottish domestic cup double in both 2016 and 2017 with Hibernian.
And now Smith is about to embark on a new chapter with West Ham, where she has been enjoying getting to know her new team-mates and joining up with fellow Scotland international, Lisa Evans at Club level for the first time.
“I may have only been here for six weeks or so, but you can already see the qualities that this squad has. I think Dagny will be a great leader for us this season, she’s a good person to have in the team and she leads by example.
“Having Lisa here as a friendly face when I arrived was brilliant as she was one of the only players that I knew when I first arrived. Everyone has been so welcoming, and I haven't had any issues with settling in.”
Pre-season has thrown some bumps in the road for the Hammers, who were beaten in their last public pre-season outing by fellow WSL side Liverpool at Loughborough University.
However, there is still plenty of optimism in the air amongst the team ahead of the new season – with Smith and co having a number of weeks to put in hard work at Chadwell Heath after the defeat to the Reds.
“Pre-season is the time to learn – to experiment with different formations, using different players and also promoting players up from the Academy. I guess some of the results we’ve had aren’t what we would have wanted, but this is the best time to have them.
“You can’t really learn without having a couple of stumbling blocks along the way, and I think that pre-season has allowed us to reflect and practice on the things that went wrong.
“When the season come in, when it gets hard, we know how it feels because we’ve had that experience during pre-season, we will know how to stick together, and we will try not to let it happen again.
“Playing at Stamford Bridge will be special; these are the types of games everyone wants to play in. We know it will be tough because we know of the quality that Chelsea have in their ranks.
“It’s exciting to have the first game of the season there, and we want to put in a good showing on the opening day.”
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