Gareth Taylor: “I Think The Girls Gave Everything”

A point is better than none, and that adage continues to carry on through Liverpool Women’s season, as they were able to snatch a point from the jaws of defeat against West Ham on Sunday. Despite going down to 10 women for a very questionable red card on Gemma Bonner early in the game, the point was saved by Mia Enderby scoring her first Women’s Super League goal, and who else but Beata Olsson.

“I think the girls gave everything. It was a really difficult situation,” manager Gareth Taylor said following the match.

“The game becomes not what you want when you lose a player like that and an experienced player especially in Gemma. But I think the girls dealt with it really, really well. We had to adjust quite a few things and make some changes initially and then make some further changes due to the threats we saw. It’s really difficult when you’re down to 10 players. You have to give the players great credit; they worked really hard and got the point today.”

The decision to send off Gemma Bonner came from the perception that she was denying West Ham’s Riko Ueki a goal scoring opportunity in the 19th minute, but without VAR in the WSL there is no one to convince the referee that their insane decision shouldn’t stand. Taylor agreed with pretty much everyone else watching the match that it shouldn’t have been a red, but admitted that appealing it could be tricky.

“I’ve seen it back. I don’t think it’s a red card – I really don’t,” Taylor admitted.

“I think Jenna Clark is playing [Riko] Ueki onside, if that makes sense, so she’s closer to the goal. I think straight away that has to be taken into consideration that it’s not a goalscoring opportunity.

“You have to be careful with appeals. Sometimes if they go against the appeal, they can make the ban even longer, so I’m not too sure. This is where we would like the officials to be able to express themselves with the decisions they make afterwards and stand in front of a camera like we do. We all get things wrong… we just would like a bit of a better understanding. Of course, if we had the technology, we would look back on that today straight away and see it’s not a red card situation.”

Like clockwork at this point, Beata Olsson scored once again to equalize late in the second half, making sure that the gap does not widen too much ahead of them on the table.

“It was a really good finish. When you have a lot of time in front of goal like that – and she had a lot of time because she worked the situation well,” the manager explained.

“It was a loose pass from West Ham and she made the time for herself and they’re really difficult when you have time because a lot of things go through your mind. For her to finish it off shows the confidence that she’s bringing.

“She has a lot of goals, and I also thought it was really good for Mia [Enderby] to get her first goal in the WSL, which is hard to believe because she’s a really talented player. But I think she’ll take a lot of confidence from that. Again, that was a very good left foot finish.”

Really on the top of everyone’s mind should be the opening of the winter window in January, as Liverpool have gone into this season severely depleted despite the purchases they did make. Injuries have only exacerbated their problems, but fielding only five available subs on Wednesday was proof of just how thin the squad is.

“It was important before the game. Nothing has changed during that game. Of course, we’ll have to see how the troops recover over the next few days,” Taylor said.

“Regardless of what happened today, we’re really clear on the things we have to improve on for sure. Both on pitch and off pitch it’s trying to increase numbers and get increased quality into the team, that is always going to be at the forefront.”

Liveprool Women next face Chelsea in the next round of the League Cup (yikes) on December 21 before going on their own winter break to enjoy the end of the year holidays.