'We’re building our control of each game'

We ran out 4-2 winners over West Ham United in the Women’s Super League on Sunday - and Joe Montemurro is delighted with the control that his side displayed.

After going a goal behind through Jane Ross, Leah Williamson and Janni Arnth stepped up to place us in front. The hosts then went on to equalise on the stroke of half-time, before a second-half double from Danielle van de Donk ensured that we remain at the top of the WSL table.

We spoke to Montemurro after the final whistle - and this is what he said:

on going a goal behind early on…

It was more about the way that we went behind. We consider goal kicks to be part of our set-pieces because the players have time to set themselves up and react to the situation, but instead we were poor and childish. It was very frustrating. In the end we created many, many chances to win that game three of four times over, but again, I think the positive thing is that we largely dictate whether we’re going to score or they’re going to score. We’re building that control on the game that we keep talking about. 

on conceding before the break…

It was exactly the same situation from another long set-piece. We have a set-piece structure to deal with these situations and it was actually on our board. It’s in our set-piece booklet so it was really frustrating to concede in that manner. 

on his half-time team talk…

I think if you were close enough to the changing rooms then you would have heard me!

on Arnth scoring on her debut…

We brought her in because she’s an experienced defender that adds composure to the side. The pleasing thing for me is that she didn’t put a foot wrong with the ball. She maybe overplayed her first three or four passes, but in the second half she found some good little pockets and took part in some nice phases of play, which is very, very important. I strongly believe that she’ll grow into our style.

on Beth Mead assisting three…

I think she suits exactly the way that we want to play. She can play a little bit more central and she can also play out wide, she can play a little bit deeper and she can play a little bit higher. That puts defenders in trouble because she’s very good at finding a line of pass when we’re attacking and you can’t defend that. Her last pass today was fantastic, so she deserves all the accolades.

on what pleased him most about the performance…

I think control. The beauty of it is that even though they scored with two great finishes from Jane Ross, it was our fault. It was our situation to deal with and it was in our control, so we exactly where we need to improve. The important thing is that we saw evidence off our style and evidence of playing through.

on his options now in comparison to four week ago…

I think we’re growing, but I don’t think we’re there yet. We’ve obviously freshened some players up and we’ve had to hit the ground running unfortunately because we’ve got three big games in a week. The reality is that we’ve got to keep the momentum and keep the tempo up and obviously the longer we keep that going, the more options we’ll have. It’s all part of building the squad and the reality is that we’re on top at the moment and we need to stay there and keep fighting.