‘Beating the Foxes helped reignite our push for a European place’

It’s been a difficult start to the campaign but Milly Thomson is hopeful our Women can kick on

November 10, 2024 Milly Thomson Features, West Ham Women 0

Pre-match at the West Ham United v Manchester City EPL match, at the London Stadium, London, UK on 31st August, 2024.

We have had a very hard start to the league on paper, but I was still hoping for more than two points from our first six matches. We are only out of the relegation zone on goal difference. The only games we have picked up points in this season were away to Everton, who are the team that sit in last, and at home to Liverpool. Both games we scored first in.

Even though we have not started the season the way I would have wanted us to, I must state we have played three out of the top four already and two of them were away so it was never going to be easy. Our next three games are all winnable and we should be aiming for nine points but seven is a minimum and if these points come in, our league position will look a lot more promising.

Also going into these games, it is nice to see our star striker, Riko Ueki, on the score sheet in our last two games, hopefully she can carry on her personal form and push us up the league. It also has not helped us last month that star midfielder, Kristie Mewis, has been sat out due to a recurring muscle injury.

The club posted an update on her injury which makes us believe she should be back after the Leicester City game and that will be a huge bonus going into the easier run we have. Since joining in January 2023, the American midfielder has only played four times for us due to injuries.

Hopefully after her return, she can go on a game streak and go back to being the star player we brought her in to be. One positive that this season has given to us is a great start to the league cup, after beating Portsmouth 6-1, we sit top of the table.

We face London City away at the end of the month and hopefully we can carry on our good spell and get out of the group. I always said this season I would like us to have a good cup spell to help create some excitement around the club and so far, we are doing that.

The last two seasons we have got to the last eight and semi-final so hopefully this year we can go one better and be at the final come February. I’m writing this ahead of our game against Leicester City at home. This game was a must win if we wanted any chance of still getting Europe at the end of the season.