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Photo by Jess Hornby/Getty Images
Liverpool Women face Everton on Sunday needing a win over the last-place Blues to try to get their season on track.
After a stellar 2023-24 campaign, Liverpool Women have started off the new season rather sluggishly, with just nine points to show for the opening seven matches of a Women’s Super League season that many had hoped would see the Reds challenging for third place and European qualification.
Even for a side in top form, Sunday’s match against perennial title favourites Chelsea was always likely to be a tough task, and mistakes at key moments made things even more difficult for the Reds as they eventually slumped to a 3-0 defeat in a game in which they managed just 33% possession.
“We had a few passages of play that were good, it’s just frustrating it’s our mistakes that led to the goals,” star scorer Taylor Hinds reflected afterwards. “I think we competed with them well, so hopefully we can take the positives into the next game and work on what we need to improve in the next game.”
The main positive, perhaps, is that on paper a defeat to Chelsea isn’t an unexpected result for most teams. The way the game played out, though—even aside from the Reds’ key mistakes—may point to hopes and expectations being set a little too high after last season’s fourth place finish for LFCW.
It also makes their upcoming match at Everton on Sunday even more important, a game in which nothing less than three points against the last-place Blues will be acceptable if the Reds are to have any realistic hope of getting their season belatedly on track and making a serious top three charge.
“When you go into a derby, everything is scrapped,” Hinds added. “It’s a derby and you want to get those three points. We want it to be red, they want it to be blue. It’s a totally different game and they’re going to put everything into it and so are we. It’ll be a real fight. We’re looking forward to it.”
