Manchester United Women manager Marc Skinner has had his say on his side’s massive trip to Liverpool this weekend.
United have had a very positive start to the season, gaining seven points from nine and securing Champions League football that will begin next month.
Emotional challenge
The world of women’s football was shocked by the death of former Liverpool manager Matt Beard a few days ago, and there will certainly be an emotional atmosphere during the match on Sunday.
Speaking on this matter Skinner in his pre-match press conference he stated, “I think it’ll be one that’s charged with emotion, and that can go two ways for a team. It can galvanise you, it can promote you, it can push you, or it can consume you.”
He continued, “it’ll be highly charged with emotion, but very respectful, I think, from both teams. I think there will be a respect for the great man.” The manager also claimed that the biggest respect they can pay to Beard would be going out and being as competitive as possible.
Tactics
Skinner suggested that the emotion of the match might render tactics less important than usual but that he will still have a clear message to his players.
He stated, “I’m sure they’re going to have energy at times, that we’re going to have to soak the pressure up and deal with, but we’ll speak about that.”
Liverpool better than table suggests
Liverpool have so far lost their two opening matches of the season and sit 11th in the table.
Nonetheless, Skinner believes they have played better than their results show and that they will soon improve.
He asserted, “they’ve shown moments of fragility, and I’d expect that with a team that are trying something new. But, all in all, I don’t think it’ll be long until they turn those results around.”
Injury news
Finally the United head coach provided some news on the injury situation.
Simi Awujo, Millie Turner and Leah Galton all remain unavailable but there are no other injury concerns ahead of the massive match.
He commented, “everybody else is in the squad and, as of now, we’ve still got two training sessions, but, as of now, everybody is fighting fit and ready to go.”
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
