Beard Report: “Good End to a Frustrating Day”

The end of this weekend’s Liverpool FC Women game was far more thrilling than the first half suggested it would be: two thriller goals in the final moments, and Liverpool getting to walk away from Brighton with a much needed point. The first half was lacklustre, and Matt Beard did not mince any words.

“I was frustrated, and I voiced my frustration,” Beard told the club’s website about his half-time talk. “I don’t lose my temper with the players, but it was a heated half-time because we weren’t doing what we set up to do. We trained Friday fantastically; we found the spaces and we showed the girls at half-time that the spaces were there that we had set up to play through and round.

“I felt second half when we went to the 4-3-3, put Charlotte [Wardlaw] in there [it] gave us an extra body and it allowed us to play down the sides, which we could’ve done in the first half if we would’ve got into the positions, but we didn’t.

“They deserve a lot of credit because Taylor [Hinds] hit the bar and there’s another couple of half-chances as well and I felt we deserved at least a point, if not all three.”

“It’s great to have that option [of van de Sanden],” he added, when asked about the two late goals. “You look at the assist for Furney’s goal - that pace is tough to deal with. I thought Gilly [Flaherty] had an outstanding game today and [there was] a lot of good play from her... it was a good ending to a frustrating day.”

The team will be back on Thursday, November 24 when they take on Reading.