Willie Kirk has spoken of the importance of Everton's WSL clash at Birmingham City on Wednesday night to keep up the pressure at the top of the table.
The Blues returned to winning ways on Sunday with an impressive 4-0 victory over Bristol City at Walton Hall Park. That kept Everton fifth in WSL but six points off third-placed Arsenal with a game in hand.
Kirk's side now go to Birmingham, with the Toffees boss wanting his side to put together a winning run that can help seal European qualification at the end of the campaign.
In his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Kirk discussed...
Sunday’s 4-0 victory over Bristol City…
We needed a win. I’d been reminded a few times it had been a while since we won in the WSL so it was a welcome three points, a great start to the new year and hopefully the start of a run of victories. We need that if we going to propel ourselves back into the top spots. It was welcome and gives us the opportunity to build on it now.
Coping with injuries in recent weeks…
I was very aware that we didn’t have any of the top four teams [at the start of the season] so it gave us an opportunity to put together a good run of results. The injuries we picked up has not helped. One of our strengths at the start of the season was utilising our full squad, keeping everything fresh and energy levels high and that got taken away from us because of injuries. That affected us and is something we will learn from when we are in that situation again.
Team news for the trip to Birmingham…
Everybody’s come through Sunday, which is good. We’ve got Valerie [Gauvin] and Rikke [Sevecke] back on the pitch so they’ve come through with no reactions which is really positive. Claire Emslie will hopefully be back on the bench tomorrow so things are getting back to where we are in terms of good numbers to choose from and good competition.
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Mixing up the goals around the squad…
It’s been a really big positive, sharing ownership of goals. We put a lot of responsibility on that front five and it’s good to see them contributing to assists and goals [against Bristol City] and then Meg chipping in with a goal.
Transfer activity before next week’s deadline…
We expect to get a couple in. We’ve always said we’d be active. Things have not moved as quickly as we would have liked. We missed out on a defender but we are realistic in that we’re not going to get everyone we want but we certainly expect to bring a couple in, just to freshen things up more than anything. We’ve had three really good transfer windows. This one has not gone exactly how we’ve liked but we’re competing with a lot of other top teams for players. We’ve raised our own standards.
The potential transfer of Damaris Egurrola to Lyon…
I think it will be concluded soon. It’s going to happen in the near future. She wasn’t in the squad at the weekend and won’t be in the squad for Birmingham.
Listen to the latest Official Everton Women Podcast, sponsored by Lil-Lets, below or by clicking here. You can also catch up on past episodes with players including Poppy Pattinson, Hayley Raso and Ingrid Moe Wold here.
