It’s goals that have proved most elusive in the Women’s Super League for West Ham Women since the turn of the year, and despite finally registering two goals in back-to-back matches against Reading and Aston Villa respectively, their singularity means the Hammers are still without a league win this season and drifting further away from the table’s fifth-place berth.
Once again, West Ham were left ruing spurned chances as they fell to a 2-1 defeat to the Villains on Sunday. It was the same scoreline Paul Konchesky’s side were forced to reckon with against Reading the week prior after Vivianne Asseyi’s late equaliser was eclipsed by a Rachel Rowe screamer five minutes from full-time.
It was Asseyi again who would deliver in front of goal for the Hammers on Sunday, teeing up a tense finale in Dagenham. Nevertheless, despite Konchesky’s side fervently hunting for an equaliser, they were consigned to a fourth league defeat in five since January as neither Grace Fisk nor Dagný Brynjarsdóttir could put away late chances.
READ MORE: West Ham need to be 'ruthless' against Aston Villa in WSL clash
The final minutes were a microcosm of the match as a whole, in which West Ham had five shots on target whilst Villa scored with both of their only efforts on target.
And Asseyi made clear her disappointment with her team’s ongoing goalscoring woes in front of goal against a side the forward felt was there for the taking.
“I think that as a team, we can do better,” Asseyi told whufc.com. “We had the opportunity to kill the game in the first half with some of the chances, and we have to do that if we want to be coming out on top in these tough matches.
“We always knew it was going to be a tough game, but when you don’t take the chances, it becomes tougher.”
Lapses in the Hammers' defence led to Rachel Daly and Jordan Nobb’s respective goals, with West Ham failing to clear their lines and gifting the strikers preventable chances.
And Asseyi noted the cruel irony of Villa’s ruthlessness in front of goal, in comparison to theirs.
“Football is like this sometimes,” Asseyi admitted. “Sometimes you go on a bad run and can’t find the back of the net as often as you would like. When you don’t score, it gives the opposition a chance, and that’s exactly what happened today. They took their big chances and we didn’t.
“We have to keep going, working hard to try and put our run of form right again, we need to do better in the games coming up – we know that will be tough, but we need to start picking up points.”
The Hammers are without a competitive fixture until 25 March when they face title-chasers Manchester United away at Old Trafford.
And Asseyi hopes the extra time on the training pitch can help the squad refocus and return to winning ways.
“I think having nearly two weeks without a game will be good for us as a group,” she said. “It’s tough as a player because you don’t want to dwell on a loss, but it will give us lots of time to prepare and work on things out on the training pitch.”
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