LEIGH, England — Eva Olid insisted she will stick to trying to play her style of football in order to build a more competitive team after Sunday’s 5-0 loss to Chelsea left the Manchester United manager still searching for her first win in charge.
United managed only two shots during the afternoon, with only one being on target. Despite conceding five, United’s goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce did well to prevent the team from suffering a heavy defeat.
Olid, who was only appointed weeks before the start of the season following Marc Skinner’s departure, said her team’s schedule — which began at big-spending London City — has made it hard to play the way she wants. United face a trip to play Arsenal next weekend.
“I knew it will be difficult because, of course, you want to implement attacking a style of football, but you are playing three different, difficult teams,” Olid told a news conference.
“You wanna attack, but you know that you have to defend too and these are difficult games to build a confidence in attack, but I’m here to build this identity, and I have to be faithful to that identity.”
Though there are some positives to playing the bigger teams early on, the Spanish coach admitted that it helps you to identify weaknesses early on and those can be strong points to build on.
Despite the game plan of her attacking style of football not working so far, Olid said she believes sticking to her plan is the best way to get the team to where she wants to be.
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“If you start changing then you are never going to build what you want to build. If I start saying no, today, no, because they are a strong opposition, today, we don’t try to build, then [the players] will never have the confidence to do it,” she added.
“If we keep doing, it’ll start happening, the confidence will grow, and then we will start being consistent how we want to play. For that, I say, it’s a process. I know it’s so hard because this beginning is hard and nobody wants to lose a game, but, we have to be faithful to what we want to do, and because I think that long term will give us the wins.”
Chelsea boss Bompastor: Thrashing an opponent is best way to respect them
However, it was a comprehensive performance from Chelsea who had five different players on the scoresheet following a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa last week.
The club returned to their clinical finishing after struggling in front of goal against Villa on the opening weekend.
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Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor praised her teams’s improved clinical finishing and dominant performance.
“We started strong and we maintained and sustained the intensity all through the game, which is something we need to do when I’m talking to you about the mentality, the mindset,” Bompastor said.
“I’m quite happy with the reaction we had from last weekend. I still think there is a process around that. I’m really happy with the way we reacted today but maybe later in the season, I’m anticipating us to drop sometimes. I’m making sure I’m supporting the players with that mindset mentality, making sure we keep this in intensity as much as possible. If we are able to do that, we are a complete different team.”
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In giving her assessment of the 5-0 win, Bompastor said the best way to show respect to a team is to try to score as many goals as possible.
“I think for me, when you have the opportunity to really hurt a team, the best way to respect them, it’s to score as many goals as you can, to create as many opportunities as you can,” she said.
“It’s never easy to see the other team or the other manager to concede five goals because if I was the other team, I would be really sad. But that’s the best thing you have to do and for me, showing respect to the opponent, having that desire and mentality to score as many goals as possible. That’s what makes the difference between the great teams and the good teams.”
