Liverpool boss Matt Beard has heaped praise on young defender Hannah Silcock despite his side's 2-0 defeat to Manchester City in the Continental League Cup.
The 18-year-old centre-back joined the Reds at the age of eight and signed her first professional contract with the club earlier this year. After impressing in Liverpool's last Conti Cup outing against Blackburn Rovers, Silcock was restored to the starting lineup on Wednesday night and put in another brilliant performance against Gareth Taylor's side.
Liverpool took to the field at Prenton Park knowing a win over Manchester City would see them top Group B and guarantee qualification for January's quarter-finals. However, second-half goals from Filippa Angeldahl and Mary Fowler ended their flawless run in the competition and means the Reds must now wait to see if they will advance to the knockout stages as one of the two best second-placed teams.
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Despite the result, Silcock's display was one of several positives the Liverpool manager could take from Wednesday's clash.
"We’ve had a good campaign in this tournament," Beard said after the game, "it’s been very helpful in keeping everyone match fit. We’ve been able to rotate.
"If you look at Missy Bo’s performance tonight, Hannah Silcock’s performance tonight, you wouldn’t think Hannah Silock’s just turned 18 years old. (I'm) really, really pleased, what a talent. As I said, there’s a lot of positives we can take from the campaign so far and fingers crossed we’ve done enough to be in the knockout stages."
Reflecting on the performance as a whole, the Liverpool boss said: "I think first half we did okay. I felt like we had good moments, thought we defended really well.
"I said at half-time be a bit more positive and break their press when we do go forward, a bit like we did against West Ham…I was a little bit apprehensive tonight doing that."
The Reds will now turn their attention to Sunday's Women's Super League meeting with Leicester City at Prenton Park. The Foxes currently sit bottom of the table having failed to pick up a single point in the league this term, but Matt Beard believes Willie Kirk's side will travel to Merseyside with a point to prove following Chelsea's 8-0 rout at the King Power last time out.
"If you look at Leicester, they’ll probably look at this game as a must win so in turn that puts them under a little bit more pressure," the Liverpool boss said.
"If we can perform like we did on Sunday and in some of the moments tonight then I think we’ll be okay but we’re not going to take anything for granted. There’s no easy games in this division and it's especially even tougher when they’ve just had a big defeat like they’ve had because they’re going to want to put that right so it gives them a bit of added motivation.
"We’ve just got to make sure that we concentrate on ourselves and, if we do that, then I think we’ll be okay."
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