Paul Konchesky said that West Ham United Women’s 4-0 defeat against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday afternoon was a tough result to take.
The Hammers were solid for 55 minutes against the Red Devils, who were playing at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ for the second time this season. However, Katie Zelem converted from the spot to open the scoring after Hawa Cissoko had fouled Alessia Russo inside the area.
Lucia Garcia came off the bench and notched a brace, whilst Hayley Ladd added another to leave the Hammers heading back to east London with nothing.
There were positives for the manager to take at full time however, with the performance of his side before the penalty bringing praise as they now turn their attention to their final Barclays Women's Super League fixture before the April international break, when they face Liverpool at Chigwell Construction Stadium.
But he also admitted there is lots for his team to work on between now and then as they look to return to form.
It’s a tough one to take.
I think for 55 minutes we were very good. I’m devastated for the players to be fair because for that amount of time we managed to match them – which is a good achievement.
But when you concede one it’s always going to be a mountain to climb, and after two or three then there’s no coming back.
We have to take the positives that we showed until we conceded.
We need to use those in our next match to try and get some points on the board to keep moving up the table. There’s a lot of positives that we can take from tonight for sure – but at the same time there’s plenty that we can improve on.
The four goals we conceded are probably all down to mistakes we made, so we need to cut those out. Making mistakes at places like Old Trafford can hurt you, and that happened to us tonight.
It’s an unbelievable achievement for Kate.
For somebody to play 177 matches in a top league like the WSL is brilliant – and it’s even better that she’s been able to equal the record with the Club that she supports.
She’s been a top player for this Club since coming into the WSL – it’s a massive achievement for her and we’re all delighted for her.
Every single one of the players will take something from this experience.
A lot of them will not have experienced anything like this before, it’s a massive step up when you’re playing in front of a crowd of nearly 30 thousand. It’s something that they can tick off and hopefully it will help them deal with that again in the future.
Liverpool next weekend is a massive game.
We’re going to need all of our supporters behind us – stick with us and support us because we will need it against a tough Liverpool side.
This group has what it takes to get back to form and improve, and we need to do that quickly.
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