Paul Konchesky believes that West Ham United Women can return to their best when they face Reading in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday afternoon.
The Hammers are without a win in their last three matches but have a strong record against the Royals in the WSL winning four of their last five meetings in the competition.
That includes a 3-2 victory for the Irons at Chigwell Construction Stadium back in October, and Konchesky hopes that they can be on the winning side this time around as they look to bolster their tally of 16 points and climb up the table.
Reading meanwhile sit in 11th place in the standings, nervously looking over their shoulder as they sit only one point above the ever-improving Leicester City.
It’s a chance for Konchesky’s side, who sit seventh, to move close the gap to the likes of Everton and Aston Villa who occupy the two places above them – but nonetheless, the boss is expecting a difficult tie at Select Car Leasing Stadium.
We’re expecting a really tough match.
The table can sometimes be a little bit deceptive. Reading aren’t in the best of positions in the standings, but both teams haven’t won in the division for a couple of matches.
They have a lot of quality – they’re a really hardworking team and have a good attitude, as they showed against us in the first match where they nearly came back to draw with us.
We’ve had two defeats in cup competitions coming into this one, and the whole group want to make sure that we come out on the winning side on Sunday so that we can start building some momentum.
We will be without Amber and Jess on Sunday.
Amber (Tysiak) is making really good progress with her injury. It’s such a shame that she hasn’t been able to play for us yet, but sometimes that sort of bad luck happens in football.
She’s working really hard with our medical team, and we’re hopeful that she will be back on the pitch soon and available for selection in the near future.
Jess (Ziu) is obviously looking much longer term; she is also making good progress but won’t be involved anytime soon.
We have to be wary of the threat that Reading pose.
They have a lot of quality, they can frustrate you, but they also can cause you issues up the other end of the pitch.
They haven’t played at home since January – almost six weeks, so we need to be wary of that. They will be up for this game and will want to put on a good performance for the home crowd.
We’ve had some really good battles against them over the last couple of seasons since I’ve been involved with the women’s team, and I’m sure Sunday will be no different.
We want to continue moving forward.
It’s another opportunity to put pressure on those above us whilst distancing ourselves from those below. There’s still a lot of matches to play and we want to make sure that we’re giving ourselves the best possible chance to finish as high as we can.
It’s easier said than done, but three points on Sunday would go a long way to helping us move up the table and we all want to get back to winning ways.
