West Ham Women: How Rehanne Skinner has revolutionised WSL team ahead of game vs Chelsea Women | Football Newsnews24

Time is the enemy of any football manager – a constant race against the clock to make improvements needed yesterday. But over the last 18 months, Rehanne Skinner has gone against that grain, slowly but surely revolutionising West Ham Women.

“When I came in, I knew that everybody was very aware of where the team was, where the structure was, and essentially that it was a journey and a project,” the Hammers boss said.

“We needed to rebuild, restructure and add quality to the playing squad and those three things can’t be achieved overnight. Collectively, we’ve managed to chip away at all of those foundations and build on that every time we’ve had the opportunity.”

Although Skinner will say it began months before, the building blocks were there in January 2024. Players like Katrina Gorry, Kristie Mewis and Shelina Zadorsky joined the club, helping to steer West Ham to WSL safety.

“It’s a results-based business, but last year, we knew that we were going to be under the pump all season based on where we were and what we had,” Skinner added. “We chipped away in the January transfer window, which was really positive for us, and evolved further in the summer window. We’ve added much better quality, and that’s showing.”

And Skinner’s right – the signs are there for everyone to see. Heading into the weekend, West Ham sit eighth in the WSL – just four points from Brighton in fifth with five games to play – and have already scored more league goals than the last campaign, with big improvements in defensive metrics.

They reached the semi-finals of the League Cup too – knocked out by Sunday’s opponents Chelsea, who they visit live on Sky Sports – and have lost just twice at home in the WSL this season.

It is a drastic difference from the team Skinner took over in 2023, and she went some way to explaining just how West Ham have done it.

“It’s come through building relationships and being really clear with where we started, what the expectations were, how long and what it was going to take to get there,” she said.

“As a team, our identity is evolving. We’ve reduced the number of goals we’ve conceded, which was a big thing from last year. We wanted to look at the areas that we struggled with and put in place some key measures that were going to help us to mitigate those challenges.

“That’s been with player recruitment, with some of the areas that we’ve focused on in training, and our attacking play in particular now with the squad additions has started to stand us in good stead.

“We’ve had the experience this season in the back line and how we were structured, but we weren’t as effective in the first half of the season going forward. Now, you can see the team’s coming together more and we’re moving in the right direction.

“When you look at all aspects of the team and the club itself, it’s taken a massive step forward in the last 18 months. That’s a credit to all the people behind the scenes as well that have got on board with what it’s going to take.

“We have clearly evolved the club and long may it continue. We’re definitely on the right trajectory now. We want to keep looking at how we bridge the gaps and it’s a never-ending project, but we’re in a much more competitive space. That’s where we wanted to get to and we’ve done it in the right way.”

Sunday 30th March 4:00pm


Kick off 4:30pm

The foundations are there, but with fluctuating form from season to season a regular occurrence in the WSL, how does Skinner plan to maintain West Ham’s improvements?

“We want to progress every year and we need to be consistent with it,” she said. “We still want to keep pushing to finish as high as we possibly can this season and we want to be competing with ‘the best of the rest’. We want to be better than them. That’s the first step.

“Next year, we want to grow the team again and make sure that we sustain the ability to be competitive in the league.

“We’ve got to improve away. That’s what it’s going to take to go to the next level in this league, so that’s going to be really important for us for the remainder of the season and for next year.”

‘Ueki one of the WSL’s most underrated players’

One of the key contributors to West Ham’s improved attacking play is Japan international Riko Ueki. She ranks top among her team-mates for shots and shots on target, and second for goals, assists and chances created.

“I think Riko is one of the most underrated players in the league,” Skinner declared of her forward.

“Her work-rate for the team, her positional awareness, her tactical astuteness is just on another level. With that, she brings a lot of composure technically as well. She helps us to progress the ball with some real quality. She’s fantastic and that’s been instrumental to the team.

“At the start of the season, we were playing in a back five and it wasn’t the intent. We weren’t ready, actually, with the players that we had come in to migrate to our preferred shape.

“But when we’ve got Riko into the position we wanted to get her in, it’s completely transformed the way that we’re able to progress the attacks. Now we have the people around her as well that can benefit off of her clever movements.

“There’s still work to do for us because her movement is so clever, I don’t think we identify that all the time, if I’m honest. We’re still trying to evolve that part of our game.”

Ueki is only beaten by Viviane Asseyi for goals and assists for West Ham in the WSL this season, scoring her sixth goal with a superb direct free-kick against Spurs on Sunday. But it is her leadership that has helped her team the most this season.

“Vivi has always scored goals in this league, but she’s one of our leaders within our team now as well. She’s got more responsibility, which is exactly what she needed,” Skinner said.

“The relationship with her and the other players has evolved with the forward line and that’s coming out with the responsibility that she wants. It’s allowing her to really drive the team forward even more, so she’s stepped up to that challenge massively.

“She can score and unlock something in games that a lot of people can’t. A lot of players would want her in their team – that’s shown with the quality of her conversion. But equally, in one of our most recent games, she’s also made a 30-yard recovery and blocked a cross.

“All the players are on board with what it’s going to take to win and they show that by their actions, and have been consistent with it, which is tough to do.”

How League Cup defeat helped West Ham

West Ham’s progress will be put to the test once again when they face Chelsea, live on Sky Sports.

Although they have lost by an aggregate score of 7-0 to the Blues across the League Cup and WSL this season, Skinner points to the semi-final in early February as a watershed moment, not only for the Hammers’ season, but their overall project.

Since then, they have drawn against Manchester City and were narrowly beaten 4-3 by Arsenal, as well as claiming wins against Brighton and Spurs.

“The players have got a really high belief and it started when we played so well in the second half of the League Cup semi-final against Chelsea,” she said.

“That was a bit of a tipping point for us in the style that we were trying to play and the way that we actually executed it. Since then, we’ve had a really strong run of form against everybody.

“Getting ourselves into a leading position against Arsenal was really important. I felt we probably should have been ahead at half-time against Man City as well.

“We showed great character and strength in both of those games at different times. That’s something we know we can rely on, so we’ll go and give it everything we can. Hopefully, that can give us the outcome that we want.

“You’re playing against the best, so it’s a good opportunity for us to really test ourselves again, see how much we’ve learned so far and see if we can convert some opportunities.”

Watch Chelsea Women vs West Ham Women live on Sky Sports Football from 4pm on Sunday; kick-off 4.30pm.