Matt Beard spoke to the media at the AXA Melwood Training Centre on Friday afternoon for the first time this season to preview his Liverpool side’s opening day fixture against Leicester City.
Liverpool and Leicester will feel a sense of déjà vu as they come into their season opener, as the two sides faced each other on the final day of the 2023/24 season, resulting in a dominant 4-0 win for Liverpool. Beard will certainly hope for a repeat of that to kick off the campaign, and he spoke on his excitement to get going.
What did Matt Beard say?
“It seems like an eternity since we played Leicester at the King Power Stadium back in May, but we’re looking forward to getting started. We had a bit of a dress rehearsal against Everton at St Helens last weekend so managed to get ourselves familiarised with the new stadium and excited to get the new season started.”
While many other clubs in the WSL are facing high squad turnover or new managers at the helm, Liverpool have a unique change to get to grips with: the move from Prenton Park to their new stadium in St Helens. Beard fondly looked back on their time at Prenton Park and made clear the importance of feeling at home in St Helens.
“It may be our biggest challenge this season. If you look at Prenton Park, teams didn’t like going there. It always made me laugh when managers and their coaching staff came and didn’t know where they were going and would start moaning; I think it put them in a negative mindset before the game! We made Prenton Park a fortress and we need to do the same at St Helens.”
Coming off the back of an excellent season that saw them leapfrog rivals Manchester United to finish in fourth place, there will be a lot of people wondering whether they can keep that pace up. While keen to not falsely increase expectations, Beard ensured that the club’s standards remain very high and that they are capable of competing with the very best this season.
Embed from Getty Images“We finished where we did on merit, we worked incredibly hard on the training pitch, we worked incredibly hard in the games, and whenever we had a negative result we went on a good run after that, so we have a really good foundation. We want to do as well as we can, and our ambition is to break into that top three like anyone else. We just have to see what happens on Sunday and go from there.”
In regards to team news, Matt Beard confirmed that only Faye Kirby and Grace Fisk are out injured for this Sunday, with summer signing Olivia Smith available after having a good week in training.
Smith will be an exciting addition to the WSL this season as she brings with her the hype that’s followed her throughout her time playing in Canada, both domestically and at an international level, and her lone season at Sporting CP. The fans are anxiously waiting to see what she can add to this squad and it’s clear that the club have high hopes for her.
“She is only young, and it’ll take her time to find her feet as this is a tough league, but boy can the girl finish. She can score right foot, and left foot, she’s strong, quick, and powerful, so for us there was a lot of competition to bring her in and we’re glad she’s chosen Liverpool for the next stage of her career.”
Liverpool kick off the new season on Sunday, 22 September at 14:00, at home to Leicester City.
