Lucy Parker made her first start for West Ham United Women in the Barclays Women’s Super League since September 2022 on Sunday.
The defender has suffered with two injuries that kept her out of action for much of the calendar year, but she has begun to regain full fitness over the last couple of weeks. The opportunity arrived for her to start in the 2-1 defeat to Reading at the Select Car Leasing Stadium, albeit playing in a slightly different role.
Normally a centre-back by trade, Parker was deployed in a holding midfield role by Paul Konchesky, who was without Captain Dagný Brynjarsdóttir, who missed the match due to illness.
You would not have known that Parker was a rookie to the new role, with her marauding around the pitch, getting stuck into the opposition and often being the first port of call for the beginning of an attacking move.
But she could not help the Hammers to victory, as the team were beaten by sublime strikes from Charlie Wellings and Rachel Rowe, split between a Viviane Asseyi finish.
It felt like an opportunity missed for Konchesky's side, who are now seven points behind fifth-placed Aston Villa and are without a win in the WSL in their previous four games.
At full-time, Parker reflected on the defeat and her own performance.
We’re frustrated that we weren’t able to win the game.
First half, we should have buried the game – we could have been three or four up with the chances that we created, we just didn’t take them.
When you’re facing off against a team that are fighting for their lives down at the bottom of the table, you’re always going to be up against it in the second half.
Not taking the chances that we had was the story of the game.
We knew coming into the match that it would be transitional – we expected to have a lot of the ball and then be hit on the break by Reading if we did lose possession.
We committed numbers forward and created a lot of chances from doing so, but when you don’t take those chances then you’re running the risk of being punished eventually, and that’s exactly what happened today.
I did a job in central midfield for the team.
I’m a player that is comfortable playing in a number of different positions – I played at wing-back towards the end of last season and now in midfield today - whatever the team needs from me then I’ll try and execute that.
Any centre-back that’s been asked to step into midfield will know that it’s completely different. You’re playing on the half-turn rather than with all of the game in front of you – that was the biggest adjustment for me today.
Defensively, I love the role. I can come in and break up play and that’s very similar to being at the back. I’m aggressive in my nature when I’m playing, so I was able to push up and get on the front foot, which I enjoyed.
For me personally, it was really positive to be back out on the pitch making my first start in the league for a long time.
Aston Villa is a massive game for us.
We’ve said it in the changing room after today’s game that we need to pick up points and get back to some of the form that we showed in the earlier part of the season.
We really want to push on and finish as strongly as we can in this final part of the season – and we will need the fans to help us on Sunday against Villa – it should be another good game.
Read reaction from Manager, Paul Konchesky after Sunday's defeat to Reading.
