The month of January was a month to remember for the West Ham Women. We reached a cup semi final, secured a few crucial wins in the league to keep us away from danger and added a couple of great young signings to our experienced squad.
Cup Drama and the Chelsea Hurdle
After going down 1-0 early to Tottenham away from home, it was starting to look unlikely that we would make the semi finals. But thanks to Seraina Piubel and Kirsty Smith, we managed just that and Chelsea awaited us at Kingsmeadow.
Unfortunately Chelsea’s class on the night shone through and they won 2-0 after two early goals but the women made us proud. As much as I wanted to reach a final, to get to the semi finals and having a cup run to remember made me very happy. I just hope next season we can go one place further. Let’s just hope we don’t have to play the seven times league winners Chelsea for the third semi final in a row.
League Progress and Survival Secured
As well as our cup run, we did win a crucial game in the league against Everton at home. They only sit one position above us so we knew there was a good chance that if we played our best, we could get a great result and that is exactly what we did.
Shekeira Martinez scored on her debut to put us ahead after only nine minutes and Vivianne Asseyi completed the win after scoring her penalty in the 45th minute. This win now puts us ninth in the league and near enough confirms we will have another year in the Women’s Super League.
Smart Business in the Transfer Window
Two things I have said plenty of times when talking about us in the transfer window is we need to stop selling our best players in January and we need to add more youth to the squad. Finally we have done both in one transfer window, we kept our captain Katrina Gorry as well as Vivianne Asseyi who has attracted the attention of many clubs.
We managed to add another three players to our squad; Defender Verena Hanshaw from Roma, Eva Nystrom, who is another defender, and striker Martinez from Eintracht Frankfurt on loan. All three players are under the age of 24.
Building for the Future
It may be too late for a European push and we are out of both cups but this is a great time to think about the future. Our team is improving massively and we need to make sure we keep these players going into next year and still think about adding a few more in certain positions.
It will be interesting to see how we finish this season now there’s not much pressure on us. But I hope we keep improving because it will mean a lot going into the next season knowing these players play well together.
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