Gareth Taylor reaction: Liverpool 4-1 Aston Villa, 'real identity', Enderby injury and more
Gareth Taylor was delighted with the ‘purpose and quality’ shown as Liverpool FC Women beat Aston Villa 4-1.
The Reds trailed after just six minutes of Wednesday night’s Subway Players Cup clash, with Missy Bo Kearns scoring against her former club.
But Marie Höbinger equalised on the half-hour mark and a turnaround followed the interval at St Helens Stadium as Cornelia Kapocs and Beata Olsson (two) were on target.
See a summary of head coach Taylor’s post-match reaction below.
On his assessment of the performance…
For the majority of the game, we really played with purpose and quality, considering the amount of changes that we made, considering probably the lack of time on the pitch those guys have had. I think naturally you’re going to probably struggle in that first part. I felt like they really grew into the game. My team-talk at half time was, ‘You have been excellent, you have been really, really good.’ We looked to play with variety through the middle. The one thing we spoke about was potentially taking an extra pass at the top end of the pitch, because we were a little bit slinging the box on the right side.
The changes we made as well during the game, obviously Kappy comes on and Beata – and that gives us goals. So yeah, really pleased. I thought Maizie Truman was excellent, such a bright future. It really helps, obviously, her playing with the likes of Fuka [Nagano] and Kirsty [Maclean]. I think that was really helpful. And Marie. Those types of players are invaluable. They’ve got all the experience and Maizie doesn’t have hardly any.
On Liverpool being in a good position in the standings…
Yeah, that’s really good. I’m really pleased. It’s difficult because we have a quick turnaround for Saturday. We know what obviously Fisky [Grace Fisk] and Jenna [Clark] bring to us and we are a little bit patched up at the minute and we have to either prioritise this or the weekend. Fortunately, we’ve had a really good performance from the players who haven’t played so much.
I think it’s great; when you get the opportunity, they’ve shown us now that they’re capable. We’ve spoken about the importance of how we train. So yeah, I think it’s a good game for us tonight, I’m really pleased with what I saw. We recover now and get ready again for Saturday. And we have the same next week – we have Wednesday night, [Nottingham] Forest, our penultimate game in this tournament before the final one against Burnley.
On Olsson’s impact and managing her minutes given injuries elsewhere in attack…
Beata is quite robust. So, you do take a chance when you put her onto the pitch but actually, myself and Chad [Gribble] spoke before the game a lot about what this final part of the game could look like, where we’d want to finish with a potentially stronger team than what we started with. And Beata, Kappy, Viv [Endemann] and being able to bring Mari Ward into it as well was helpful. So, yeah, we always knew that we’d potentially finish with our team looking stronger than what we started, but you could probably say the same about Villa.
On the injury Mia Enderby suffered during the second half…
I don’t think it’s too much. I think it was a kick on the foot. Hopefully it’s nothing too much, like a fracture. Hopefully she is OK. She put us in a good position with the work that she did, and we were considering probably making that change anyway. Hopefully she is OK.
On an improvement in the team’s attacking output…
Of course, you always want that. It’s something that you want to do on a consistent basis. If we’re putting the ball in the right areas and making opportunities… we score from a set-play as well, which is pleasing because we work hard at those. The goal we gave away was really scruffy. At times we looked a little bit vulnerable to Villa’s pace. But I thought the players grew into the game a lot. I thought Faye [Kirby] commanded the box really well behind both Zara [Shaw] and Sara [Agrez].
Really pleasing night. You don’t always get that. If we’d have come away without the result, I’d still be really pleased with the performance, even if it was 1-1 and say we win on pens or lose on pens. I think the performance was good and something that is starting to become a real identity with this team, that you can see the way we want to play through midfield, out wide, with pace, with lots of finishes.
