Club captain Gilly Flaherty feels that West Ham United Women fully deserved their 0-2 victory over Manchester City on Sunday afternoon.
And she feels the best is yet to come for the rebuilt Hammers side.“I think you know that when you play against City, they’re going to have a lot of the ball, and you have to respect them in that way," she told whufc.com.
“They’re a very good team and we obviously didn’t have a lot of the ball, but we worked so hard off the ball to frustrate them and make it hard for them to play through.
“We defended for our lives today and I truly believe we deserved to come away with the win and the three points, especially with a clean sheet as well.”
“We all take the mick out of Dags [Dagny Brynjarsdottir] because we say, ‘come on, how many chances do you need’, but I think as soon as she scored that today, it was a relief for her. We all banter about it, but for me I don’t care if she missed all of them chances for her to score today.
“I’m really pleased that she’s got her goal, you could see how much it meant to her and hopefully that’s the first of many this season.
“Yui [Hasegawa] really showed her class at the end and in all honesty that’s the person you want the ball to fall to in them moments. She had a great finish and sealed it which took the pressure off us going into the last few minutes.
“We had high player turnover in the off season and it’s just about making sure we have the right people," she continued.
"We have such a good group of girls, there’s no egos, no one think they’re better than anyone else. We work for each other and fight for each other off the ball and I think you could see that today.
“This is one of the toughest places to play in women’s football. Even when I was at Chelsea, I’ve suffered so much pain here, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to come away with three points from this ground in my career.
“The times we’ve been here with West Ham, we also lost heavily, so I think we’re seeing what we’re capable of with this group of players. We deserved it today and it is huge for this club; it’s one of the best wins of my career and probably one of the biggest in the clubs professional history."
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