Everton Ladies Continue Winless Streak Against West Ham

Both Everton teams lost 2-1 on Sunday and both Jordan Pickford and Kirstie Levell saved a penalty kick today. However, the Everton Ladies goalie, Kirstie Levell, was able to save the rebound too.

Despite Levell’s heroics, Everton Ladies lost 2-1 to West Ham United, a newly brought-up team, and it is now officially Time To Worry. How worried? On a scale from 0-5, the level of worry is at a 4. If Everton loses next week to Yeovil Town, then that number goes up to 5, but it is doubtful the Blues will lose to the last place team. Right? Right?

Things started out well for the Blues, with an early goal in the 5th minute from Claudia Walker and continued success down the left-flank but the momentum changed in West Ham’s favor as the game progressed.

Looks like the Hammers studied Everton’s last game because they took advantage of the Blues’ defensive weakness on long-range spot kicks, which was exposed against Brighton for two goals. After West Ham won a free-kick well outside the box, Jane Ross headed the ball into the crossbar and then headed the rebound into the net.

Just before the end of the first half, Alisha Lehmann scored the second goal for West Ham:

What makes the loss even more concerning is that the Irons were without their star player, England international and former Chelsea player, Claire Rafferty. Two other West Ham players were also out on injury, Brooke Hendrix and Lucienne Reichardt.

Everton’s captain, defender Dan Turner, had been out with a minor injury and was subbed on in the 60th minute. Everton’s defense is definitely better when she is in the starting back line but the squad should be strong enough to deal with any missing players.

West Ham continued to get their chances, hitting the goalposts in the second half:

Everton Ladies sit near the bottom of the table, with 2 draws and 3 losses.

West Ham came to this game fully prepared. Leanne Kiernan told West Ham’s website that the Hammers “trained with a lot of intensity” this past week and went “into the Everton game with a lot of confidence.”

Gilly Flaherty told BBC.com:

”We needed to stick together after conceding early. We conceded early last week against Liverpool, and tried to get back into it, unfortunately we couldn’t.

”We spoke about it in midweek. How to react if we concede an early goal and I think our reaction was excellent, we dominated the first half. I think we rightly deserved the result we got.”

With possession almost down the middle but with West Ham earning more shots and corners, the Irons can certainly be happy with their performance.

Everton forward, Chloe Kelly, told BBC.com that the result was unsatisfactory:

”We are very disappointed, we were 1-0 up, and we thought that we could win that game. It’s a winnable game, but we’ve created our own mistakes.”

”We were confident coming out for the second half, despite being behind. We had chances in the first half, but we didn’t put them away, and West Ham were more clinical.”

Chloe Kelly told Everton.com:

“Now we have to put this game out of our minds and focus on Yeovil Town next week because that is a game we need to win.”

Kelly is right. Everton needs to win against Yeovil Town on Sunday. But what are the Toffees going to do to improve? How will manager Andy Spence respond to these latest disappointing results? Their winless streak can no longer be explained away as a fluke.

Something needs to change.

Lineup:

Everton Ladies: Levell; Brougham, Worm (Turner 60), George (c), Kaagman, Walker (Hughes 79), Kelly, James, Stringer, Hinds (Boye-Hlorkah 71), Finnigan

Substitutes not used: Bryson, Cain, Bruinenberg, Doyle

West Ham United: Spencer; Percival, Flaherty (c), Sampson, Simon; De Graaf, Simic, Longhurst, Visalli, Lehmann (Kiernan 68); Ross

Substitutes not used: Moorhouse, Kmita