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Manchester United manager Marc Skinner has claimed that West Ham were solely focused on frustrating his team, showing little ambition to win, as the two sides played out a goalless draw on Saturday afternoon.
United fashioned a number of good goalscoring opportunities but they couldn’t find the back of the net.
Celin Bizet and Gabby George both struck the woodwork, in what was a disappointing game at Dagenham. United remain in third spot in the WSL, two points behind Arsenal and five adrift of leaders Chelsea who have a game in hand.
After the match, Skinner spoke to Sky Sports and was far from happy with how the Hammers played at their own grounds.
Skinner told Sky [via BBC], “Definitely frustrating. I thought we did enough in the game to win it.”
“I don’t think West Ham came to win, they came to spoil it, which is a totally fine tactic to make, and it has got them a point. But they did not press us, they dropped into a block almost instantly when we got the ball.”
“Frustrating but there are a lot of positives we can take forward into the Chelsea game. We don’t want to drop points but the reality is that you have to beat the opponent ahead of you and we haven’t done that.”
The 42-year-old continued, “The three teams that we are going to play next will not play like that, so it will be a totally different game. They will open up and try to attack you and there will be more space to play in. We can be more threatening than we were here. We will assess and dust ourselves off.”
“We exploited the space well but we did not put the ending on it. We got in behind them and down the sides but then we needed to switch our instincts on in the final third.”
“There were a couple of great crosses put in, we hit the bar in the first half, and it was the moments that we had to make matter.”
“The pitch plays into both teams’ ability to finish in this game, West Ham weren’t clean at the other end either. It spoils the game a little bit but it’s for both teams.”
United return to action on Wednesday as they welcome Chelsea to Leigh Sports Village. They’ll then host local rivals Manchester City before wrapping up the season on May 10 with a showdown against Arsenal.
There is then the small matter of the FA Cup final vs. Chelsea at Wembley a week later.
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