West Ham boss Paul Konchesky believes his side are "closing the gap" to the Women's Super League's top performers following Sunday's narrow defeat to Manchester City.
The Hammers weathered an early onslaught from Gareth Taylor's side at the Chigwell Construction Stadium and could have taken the lead themselves on the stroke of half time, with both Abbey-Leigh Stringer and Grace Fisk seeing seeing their shots blocked on the line.
However, it wasn't to be for the hosts who fell behind shortly after the break thanks to a clinical finish from the WSL's top-scorer, Khadija 'Bunny' Shaw. The result saw West Ham drop to sixth in the table but Konchesky believes his side can take a lot of heart from the weekend's display.
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"I thought the girls were fantastic," he told West Ham TV after the game. "The first 10 minutes, we were perhaps a bit lapse, but I do think that comes down to belief.
"Being on the pitch with a team like Man City, I’m not sure my girls really believed until around 10-15 minutes in. I think, once they started to, we saw the West Ham that we should see here. Other than the five minutes straight after half-time, I thought we were fantastic."
The Hammers boss was particularly pleased with the intensity of his players before the break and believes his side could have been awarded a penalty late on for Esme Morgan's challenge on Viviane Asseyi.
He said: "It wasn’t to be but, in those ten minutes before half-time, we really put pressure on them and played well. Maybe, if we got a goal at that point, we get a different result.
"Even in the second half after their goal I thought we grew back into the game and we could have had a chance maybe with Viv getting a penalty."
Despite Sunday's result, West Ham are currently enjoying their best-ever start to a Barclays Women’s Super League season; something which Konchesky hopes his side can continue for the rest of the campaign.
"We’ve been competing with the biggest teams in this league and that’s been a massive thing for us," he said.
"You get the two three or four teams in this league and they try to run away with it, but for us this year we’ve really competed with those top four teams. That’s what I ask for from this team and we are closing that gap. We will take points off these teams and we can compete."
He added: "We’re into a busy spell now. We’ve got four or five games coming up, which is better than training, but we want to get winning games. That will give us confidence.
"We will pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down and be ready for Brighton on Wednesday."
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