Every word of Vicky Jepson’s pre-West Ham press conference

Interim Head Coach Vicky Jepson spoke to the media at Hotspur Way on Friday afternoon, ahead of our trip to the Chigwell Construction Stadium to face West Ham United in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Saturday (2.30pm KO).

Here’s everything she had to say on the following subjects…

Team news

“No updates from an injury point of view. We’ve got a full squad tomorrow and one player will be left out of the squad as we have nine on the bench.

“It just means that we have a bigger variety to pick from from the bench to change the game when we need to. I think the credit goes to the medical team that have done an exceptional job, working tirelessly hard to make sure that our players have got all the support they need to return back to the pitch so that now we’re in a position where we’ve had a full squad for the past three games.”

How being safe from relegation has effected the mood

“The focus has still been the same. Although we’re out of the pressure cooker because relegation isn’t hanging over our heads anymore, and there’s a relief from that point of view, but in terms of our consistent habits and the way that we turn up to training every day nothing has changed. We haven’t taken our foot off the gas and our main focus now is to make sure we display consistency going into the game against West Ham as we want to finish the season on a high.”

Bethany England and if she should be called up for the Lionesses

“The biggest thing is the stats don’t lie. The goals that she’s contributed to this team, the individual brilliance that she pulled out against Leicester, that got us a crucial three points. She’s fit and fantastic. It’s not just what she brings on the pitch, it’s what she brings off the pitch. She’s a grounded character with elite standards. When we’re on the pitch and when we train there’s nobody that displays those elite standards like her, even if it’s checking off a mannequin. She does it 110 percent. Even if she’s punching passes in she’s doing it at the right pace. Everything she does is a consistent elite level that we’d expect from any WSL player, but I think she goes above and beyond to display that every day. Good consistent habits, great person off the pitch, she’s been a great leader as well around the group and she’s contributed in helping those players get through a high level of pressure that we’ve had to face over the past couple of games. From my point of view, working with her over the past ten weeks in particular, it’s been a pleasure. From the point of view of the Club, players and fans, long may her consistent application continue because she certainly led us to success in the past couple of weeks.

“How can you leave a top England goalscorer out of your squad who can perform under a significant amount of pressure? With her professional behaviour, she’s been and travelled to the Euros and played a role where she’s been on the bench and not got minutes, so she can do that role if that’s what’s required, but in terms of coming into big games and pulling goals out of nowhere, we know that Beth can do that. At the end of the day, I’m not in Sarina’s position, so I’m not going to tell her how to do her job and I know that, when she comes to select the squad, it will be what she feels is right for those Lionesses when they go out to Australia in the summer.”

Planning for West Ham

“We prepare how we do for every single team. Every team we face in the WSL, you can’t just expect to get results, you’ve got to earn them. That comes from the way that you turn up and show that desire to compete. We execute our game plan. In terms of what we expect from them, we know that they got a good result last week, although Leicester had a significant amount of shots on goal and a far higher percentage of possession than West Ham. They’re a resilient team in terms of their out of possession shape and getting bodies under the ball. I think their super strength is the way they block shots in and around the area and they’re quick on transitions. As we faced last week with Reading, they’re a threat on set-pieces, so we know that they’ve got strengths that we’re well aware of and equipped to deal with, but it’s not really about West Ham tomorrow. It’s about us, us finishing with consistent standards, and we all expect that from each other. We want to finish the season on a high. We’ve had plenty of lows that we don’t want to discuss. We want to continue building on the high level that we performed at last week.”

Saturday’s game being sold out

“You’ve got to drown out the noise. Whether it’s our fans or the away fans, it always helps when you have a home advantage. We’ve just got to concentrate on the things we can control and that’s within the white lines, so our game plan, how we execute it, the subs making sure they know their roles when they come on and change the game. If we give everything that we’ve asked for, that’s all that matters on the day.”

How players are feeling physically at this time of year

“I can only speak on behalf of our players and they’re energised off the back of the win from Reading at the weekend, so they’ve been on cloud nine in the way that they’ve applied themselves this week. For us, it’s the icing on the cake to get a good performance tomorrow. I certainly haven’t seen a dip in their physical outcomes in training this week. If anything, we just want to make sure that we finish the season on a high and I’m sure we’ll do that.”

Keys to success last week

“The belief we had in the dressing room, I’ve not seen belief like that this season. The way that they turned up, had their shoulders back and heads held high. We sent every single player an individual video of themselves of their highlights, of what they look like at their best and I know that they watch those videos. We said to them that one of the key things was, when they watch those videos, that’s them at their best. If they play like that tomorrow, we have no trouble against Reading, because we know the quality that we have in the room but we’re going to have to make sure that we have that grit, determination and fight because we know that there’s going to be a lot of pressure and that Reading are a physical team and they’ll go quite direct. It was all about installing belief and confidence more so and keeping the game plan really simple and specific so that they can think less and do more, because that’s key when you’re playing under a lot of pressure, which is what we had on Saturday. The experiences from the Brighton game, whilst we took a point from that game, I can imagine fans and myself and everybody else wanted three points, I think there was a lot of pressure and when you go through a significant amount of that you grow. I could see a big spurt of growth from the group, so when we turned up at the stadium on Saturday to play Reading, I’d already seen them looking ten foot taller than what they did when they faced Brighton, so it actually put us in good stead. I know there were talks before we went to the game about if we’d be able to deal with the pressure, it’s a double-header, it’s on the back of a Premier League game, what happens if the men don’t get a result etc, but that was external noise that was never going to effect the way that we turned up and played. I’ve never been so proud of this group to put out a performance like that, scoring four goals, well-earned goals, and keeping a clean sheet in open play, we’ll forget the set-piece, I was really proud of every single one of them to give the fans those three points that they’ve wanted to see for a while, not forgetting that we secured our WSL status for next season.”

On building on a win

“The building blocks were put in place ten weeks ago. From the consistent way in which we wanted to play in our 4-3-3 shape, I know fans kept talking about different shapes because they’re fans and I admire that they want to have comments about how we play, but for these players, when they’ve been through so much this season, consistency was key. They all understood their roles inside and out, so when it came to applying those roles under a significant amount of pressure, it made it easy for them. I think the proof is in the pudding with the way that we’ve consistently performed over the last couple of games. For me now we’ve just got to finish it off tomorrow with a performance followed by the win against West Ham.”

Kate Longhurst’s last game for West Ham on Saturday

“To be honest I haven’t given her a thought, or the West Ham fans or players. All I know is their shape inside and out, their personnel in terms of what they’ll bring as footballers, but really what I care about is what we’re about, what our players are going to bring, and making sure that we bring the spirit that we showed last weekend to come away with the win. That’s my main focus and all I care about.”

Last weekend’s double-header

“Before we attended the game, I was well aware of the noise outside of it from fans, mainly negative voices around how it would effect our players given it was such a significant game. But my job is to protect the players from that noise and remain ultra calm and positive going into it. In terms of the event, we made history. We want many firsts in the women’s game and the Club’s made a first with a double-header. The WSL and Premier League game together for a significant day. We got the win, which is fantastic for our Club, so that positivity is what we need, not just for the Club but our fans as well that stayed behind. We spent the time afterwards, myself and the players, to walk around and clap all the fans for their support because they mean a lot to us. I spoke with some of the fans and there were fans that stayed who have never watched the women play before but were at the Brentford game and said they’ll definitely come back because it really cheered them up. For me, inspiring a new group of fans to come and watch us at Leyton or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or even away for those fans that travel, that’s what it’s about. To do that you’ve got to display success and perform and we definitely did that, so from my point of view I hope that that’s given fans enough to want to come back and watch us again next season because ultimately we want the fanbase to grow. We’re quite new in the WSL, which has been going for 12 years now, and we want to make sure that as this project grows our fanbase grows and compliments the projects because certainly that’s what our players deserve when they sacrifice so much every day to be a professional footballer. It was a massive success for the women’s game, having a first working together with the Premier League and it’s an absolute credit to everybody here at the Club who have worked tirelessly hard to make that achievable with such short notice.”