I have to be honest, this one was a bitter pill to swallow. I have said before, there were reasons why we didn’t get results against Liverpool and Crystal Palace, and Manchester United away was always going to be tough. Couple that with a heavy fixture schedule and some challenging cup ties (for various reasons) and the New Year period has essentially been a write off. It felt like this game should be a benchmark – a full week of training, a relatively short journey to the opponent’s ground, and no new injury worries. Time to get right, right? Wrong.

As always we invite you to head over to the Albion website HERE for a full recap of the action courtesy of Bruce Talbot. Match highlights are available via the official WSL YouTube channel HERE.

Images on this occasion are provided by Brighton & Hove Albion photographer Kyle Hemsley – as according to Getty, this match never happened!

SheGulls Summary

Brighton & Hove Albion

• The more I think about this game, the more it reminds me of the 2-0 loss we suffered against the same opponents at home last season, in that I came away wondering how the heck we managed to make West Ham look so good. Don’t get me wrong, they have some dangerous players, but so do we, it’s just theirs did everything right yesterday and ours couldn’t produce the goods when push came to shove.
• Not content to let Jordan Nobbs have an age to create a goal last week, it was Viviane Asseyi who had far too much time to put a pinpoint cross into the box on this occasion and a rebound from Riko Ueki’s header was finished off by Shekiera Martinez.
• They key, as Villa did in our previous outing, is to get back into the game with an immediate response and Albion did just that. A well-worked move down the right between Jelena Cankovic and Rachel McLauchlan saw the ball cut back to the edge of the six-yard box where Nikita Parris was on hand to stroke the ball home. One all and it felt like we were growing into the game.
• Brighton had several other cast-iron opportunities to score, but between some less than stellar finishing and the goalkeeping ability of Kinga Szemik, they just couldn’t get that second goal. In fact West Ham came closest to taking the lead as they capitalised on a defensive error from Caitlin Hayes just before the break. Fortunately Manuela Pavi’s shot hit the inside of the post and rolled across the face of the goal only to trickle wide.
• Far from come out after half-time with the bit between their teeth though, Albion looked disjointed, far too deep and highly predictable. This was encapsulated when for the second time this season West Ham capitalised on a telegraphed ball between Guro Bergsvand and Vicky Losada to score their second. They were looking for that all game, exactly as they were at the Amex, and we handed it to them – again. It’s madness. I repeat again, if we don’t have the personnel to pass out from the back, we cannot pass out from the back. It’s gifting the opponent goals week after week.
• Of course once it goes 2-1 the panic sets in again and all the patterns and technical information goes out of the window. McLauchlan gets caught the wrong side of Asseyi, who drives into the box and slows down just enough to feel the contact from behind. Was it soft – you bet your bottom dollar – can we really blame anyone but ourselves, I don’t think so.
• Two goals in five minutes, 3-1 down and the game was essentially gone at that point. We MUST stop these self-sabotaging, multiple goals conceded in short spaces of time or fifth place in the WSL is going to be all but a distant memory come the end of the season.
• The frustrating thing is that if the Albion had taken one of their several excellent chances and go 1-0 or 2-1 up, I think we go on to win. It’s certainly not that we’re a bad team, although we do have some bad habits, but ultimately we need our players to step up when push comes to shove. You can be the best human being, and try your very hardest every second of every game, but ultimately if the club want or expect more, maybe tough decisions have to be made.
• People calling for Dario’s head after the game is frankly crazy to me. He put a team out and asked them to play a certain way that led to us having ample opportunities to win the game. It isn’t his fault that we missed our chances, they scored theirs, and we made several individual mistakes that put the entire team in trouble. The only thing I would say, and perhaps he is already thinking along the same lines, is that we need to play the XI that can win us games, not who has the best reputation, most international caps, or wealth of experience.
• Despite Hayes coming in, who I thought had a really promising debut, Poppy Pattinson was still part of what looked like a three, but was all too often a two in defence. This surprised me as Jorelyn Carabali was on the bench so the opportunity to play three centre backs and free up McLauchlan and Pattinson was there. Not sure if this was a ‘managed minutes’ situation, but whatever it was, it didn’t work again. West Ham have shown they can score goals given the opportunity – they put five past Palace – and they were allowed far too many chances in this game.
• Throughout the game they looked more physical in the middle third of the field and the tide only really turned once Dejana Stefanovic came on with twenty minutes to go. I’m not sure if she is 100% fully fit after her lengthy injury layoff, but if she is, it’s a no brainer to me that she starts games.
• Do I think it is time to panic? I do not. Do I think it would be disingenuous to pretend that the current run of form isn’t concerning? I do. Even Dario is saying it isn’t good enough, so burying our heads in the sand by saying “but we’re fifth” seems a pointless exercise. You only improve by identifying what isn’t working and correcting it. That being said, do we support the team any less? Absolutely not. If anything they need our unwavering support now more than ever.

West Ham

• I mean no disrespect to West Ham by saying that we should beat them – you only have to look at the table to see that is the case. However, their star players remained composed when they needed to yesterday and took advantage of what the Albion gave them. They deserved to win, no doubt about it.
• I’m always slightly surprised to see Ueki and Asseyi still at West Ham as I think they’d certainly do a job at, perhaps not the top three, but anyone else in the league. Good on them though for staying and playing every week and West Ham have obviously done well to retain their services.

Other Business

• The refereeing I thought was as inconsistent as always. Every 50/50 went West Ham’s way, there was a definite handball not given against them (arguable either way) and the penalty was incredibly soft. I can’t hand on heart say the ref had an impact on the result though – not this week!
• The stadium announcer at the game was so disrespectful I feel like putting a complaint in – although to whom I’m not sure. He butchered every single non-standard name in our team so badly I had to check by the shirt numbers he called out who was playing because the pronunciations were so bad. At first it was borderline comical, but it went on for so long, and was so atrocious, it became either malicious or completely unprofessional. He also left the tannoy on all game so we could hear him muttering things and clapping – at full volume.
• The chant ‘we forgot that you were here’ is often sung with tongue in cheek, but not yesterday. Not only were we far louder than the home fans (which is often the case in all honesty at a lot of WSL games) but it felt like we actually had more fans in attendance. Not true of course, but I must congratulate the travelling Albion fans as always for their incredible support.

Good news, we’ll be in the Fanzone prior to our next home fixture against Chelsea, along with a few other fabulous organisations, so please come and see us! Whilst you’re there why not grab a songsheet, flyer, poster, sticker etc too!

As always you can listen to the SheGulls Podcast, recorded Monday night, released Tuesday/Wednesday, for more in depth analysis of the West Ham game and a preview of all our upcoming action.