Millwall Lionesses head coach Chris Phillips gives honest assessment of his side

After his team’s 3-1 loss to Aston Villa, Millwall Lionesses boss Chris Phillips was frank with his assessment of where he believes his squad is and what the targets are going forward.

The Lionesses are sitting bottom of the FA Women’s Championship on five points which is five off of Crystal Palace, the former Arsenal Ladies boss spoke about how this doesn’t effect his side:

“There were no targets put on the team or the club this year because of the situation we were in. So what I am looking at is the girls understanding the concepts and the way that I want this team to play and practice those to put us in a good start for next season.”

Without relegation this season it has helped relieve the pressure from the London side who nearly went into bankruptcy at the end of last season:

“With the safety net of no relegation this year, at the start of the season, we talked about damage limitation as we had a couple of heavy ones and now, we are working on different concepts and we will see where we go.”

Phillips thought that a goal before the half-time whistle severely changed the outcome of the match with the game poised to end 1-1 going into the break:

“Football is like that sometimes you know it’s very hard to keep the intensity for 90 minutes and the goal on half-time it probably encouraged them a little bit, it probably knocked the wind out of us a little bit and that is probably what affected the game in the second half.”

Despite the result, the London born head coach believes that his side are getting it right and what they are not will be figured out.

“You obviously have seen recently we are trying to play a different way than what you saw earlier on in the season and I think the girls are grasping those concepts they are in every week working hard at it and you know it is frustrating today to concede three goals.

“I put them down to two individual mistakes, we will look at the tapes and see what went wrong on those set-pieces, but you know the girls have got to be honest with themselves and work it out.”

Despite conceding three goals Millwall’s defence was solid for the majority of the game, managing to clear the ball off the line and stopping a number of Villa attacks as they neared the box this is what the hosts head coach had to say.

“Teams are not breaking through us as easily as they were at the start of the season like I said the first goal I felt came from an individual error, playing in the wrong area. The second goal came from giving away a stupid free-kick in the first half after we were overplaying so they are individual errors rather than a collective error and that we can address a lot easier.”

The game could have gone very differently for the London side after they hit the post and crossbar numerous amounts of times.

“I say this every week goals change games and unfortunately, we have hit the woodwork twice and they have put the ball in the back of the net at half-time. Goals change games.”

With only three matches left to the end of the season, including their final home match of the season when they face Manchester United, the former Arsenal Ladies boss hopes for a great atmosphere in that last home game.

“We are planning a big event here for the Manchester United home game, hopefully, that will be a great occasion like when we were able to give the mom’s their flowers before today’s game so you know hopefully the last home game of the season will be a nice one.”

Finally, Millwall welcomed back two players from injury as and Phillips gave an update on two other members of the first team.

“I thought when Ellie Stenning and Gabby Ravenscroft came on the last ten minutes it sort of lifted the team again. You know we created a couple of chances, it was great to get them back on the pitch and hopefully, Leanne Cowan and Georgie Giddings are not too far away as well.”