Liverpool motivated by 'negative and wild' media coverage as Reds eye new signings

Liverpool Women fought back to draw 1-1 with West Ham on Sunday

Liverpool Women manager Vicky Jepson highlighted negative comments in the media as one of the motivators for her side’s comeback against West Ham yesterday.

A 1-1 draw with the London club was enough to see the Reds move off the bottom of the WSL table above Bristol City who were defeated by Birmingham.

After three consecutive 1-0 defeats, Liverpool were in dire need of points and goals but they got off to the worst possible start, falling behind in the fourth minute after Adriana Leon’s shot deflected off defender Sophie Bradley to squirm past Frances Kitching.

The goal seemed to unsettle the home side who struggled to put a string of passes together in the opening stages.

But after the initial early pressure from the visitors, the Reds seemed to compose themselves and began to find some space down the right wing, Melissa Lawley asking questions of the West Ham defence.

Lawley was at the heart of most of the Liverpool’s attacks but her crosses into the box just evaded strikers Kirsty Linett and Ashley Hodson.

The Reds started the second half on the front foot with Charles forcing Courtney Brosnan into a routine save.

Kitching had to be alert at the other end to palm Kenza Dali’s shot from the edge of the box out for a corner.

Liverpool were given a lifeline on the hour mark when Rhiannon Roberts was caught by Laura Vetterlein in the area with referee Peter Gibbons pointing to the penalty spot.

Lawley had scored a penalty against Bristol City earlier in the season and took on the responsibility once again but this time she could only drag her effort wide.

At that point Liverpool could have crumbled but Jepson’s side remained determined to find an equaliser.

The introduction of Rinsola Babajide gave the Reds an injection of pace and the winger had an instant impact, holding off her defender to fire a shot that tested Brosnan.

Babajide was clearly fired up and her pace was causing the visitors problems, but she was booked after a coming together with Cecilie Kvamme who also saw yellow.

With 15 minutes to go Liverpool finally got a breakthrough. Becky Jane worked the ball out wide to Lawley whose cross was inadvertently flicked on by West Ham’s Kate Longhurst straight into the path of Charles. As the forward tried to hook her right foot over the ball it ricocheted off her thigh but found its way beyond Brosnan and into the bottom left corner of the net.

It was Liverpool’s first goal from open play in the WSL and it gave them the momentum to press for a winner.

Substitute Christie Murray fired in a fierce long-range effort which Brosnan did well to tip over the bar.

And the Reds almost snatched three points in the final minute when Lawley’s free-kick was flicked on into the path of Courtney Sweetman-Kirk but the striker could only put her header straight at Brosnan.

Jepson was pleased with her side’s fightback but admitted they could have come away with more than a point.

“The pleasing thing for me is it’s really tough for a player to miss a penalty that could have taken us to 1-1 for Mel [Lawley] but it shows her professionalism to focus on the next bit of the game and she kept her standards so high that she ended up going and getting an assist with Niamh’s finish.

“We had so many opportunities to take the three points and that’s what really kicks us a little bit as a group but having said that, myself, the backroom staff and the players will always find the positives and we’ll keep making sure we work on them and understand why they’re good but also reflect on the areas we need to tweak each week.”

Jepson also said some of the negative comments in the media about the Reds’ run of results has motivated them to prove people wrong.

“The media has been going wild, I think it was Kelly Smith that said she should come and do some shooting drills with our forwards cause they’re not finishing,” she said.

“The media are always saying that they can’t find the back of the net but we did in open play and we earned it.

“Any negative words from the media and the press always motivates us to do that extra bit more. A lot of them don’t watch our games and if you’re there and you actually see it live you’ll see that we’re not a team that deserve to be at the bottom of the league because we’ve got too much class and we play with too much class, we’ve just been unfortunate.”

The Reds take on league leaders Chelsea next week who recently signed Australian international Sam Kerr in a big money move.

The Liverpool manager said her team will embrace the challenge of taking on the Blues and also said they would be looking to bring in reinforcements during the mid-season transfer window, if funds allow.

“We are looking,” admitted Jepson.

“Obviously funds can restrict any club with what you can and can’t bring in but we are certainly looking to bring players in to strengthen our squad so I’m looking forward to that happening and welcoming in new players into our LFC family in January.

“There’s no pressure playing against Chelsea, they’re expected to win against us and rightly so because Emma [Hayes] has got them extremely well drilled and they’re all on form at the moment. But we absolutely love those tests, we loved taking on Arsenal and City, we made them both run the ball in the corner to waste time.

“We know that it’s not going to be given to us and anything we can get from that game is an absolute bonus.”

After scoring her first goal of the season, Niamh Charles said her equaliser ‘wasn’t the prettiest’ but acknowledged its importance in helping lift Liverpool off the bottom.

“It went in and that’s all that matters,” she said.

“Mel created it and it sort of ricocheted off my thigh and went in but it was an important point but we should have come away with three.

“A point is better than nothing but hopefully this will help us kick on cause our performances are getting better and better.”