A hard-fought 2-0 win against Leicester City is Manchester United’s most important of the season, according to boss Marc Skinner.
The manager spoke to press after his side’s seventh straight Barclays Women’s Super League victory.
The Red Devils beat Leicester City 2-0 at Leigh Sports Village, scoring both goals in the first half. Leicester came to life after the break and had seven second-half shots to United’s two, but the hosts hung on to their clean sheet.
What did Marc Skinner say?
“It wasn’t a good second half. In all honesty, I did expect a little bit of that, we’ve had the players back for two days, some of them only one.
“Today was just about grinding out a result which I felt we did.
“I felt this is probably our most important win of the season, for the simple reason that I knew we’d be not high energy after the international break.“
Embed from Getty ImagesUnited dominated the opening stages and Melvine Malard scored their opener from a counterattack in the 19th minute, with Leah Galton doubling the lead just before halftime. “Two very good goals in a forgettable match,” Skinner said.
Skinner did feel United should have had a penalty between the two goals for an alleged handball by Sam Tierney, who looked like she had handled Aoife Mannion’s cross.
“It should’ve been a penalty first half, it’s like basketball. She’s held the ball and it’s got to be a penalty – I think then that makes it 3-0 and it’s an even more comfortable game.“
Embed from Getty ImagesEven without the penalty, United were comfortable at halftime – but after the break, they found themselves under the cosh. It was a combination of strong keeping by Phallon Tullis-Joyce and wayward finishing by Leicester that preserved their clean sheet. “Second half we weren’t good enough. What I loved about the group, at the end of the game they were fuming about that second half. If we’d played a team that was probably in a better space they might have taken something from the game. I think we gave Leicester too many chances second half.
“We had to win it and that leaves us with more points than we had last season with seven games to go, seven wins in a row and ten clean sheets already this part of the season. So there’s loads of positives.”
Embed from Getty ImagesThe result leaves United second in the WSL table with seven games to go, five points behind leaders Chelsea – who dropped points in a draw with Brighton later on Sunday.
“We can’t control what Chelsea do – they’ve been fantastic this season so we’ve got to just maintain that we look after us. We don’t need to look at Arsenal or Manchester City, we just need to look at us.
“We want to compete in Europe. We’re a team that craves that, we’re a huge club and we need to continuously try to get to that level.”
United’s next test comes against Sunderland in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup on Saturday 8th March.
