Picture of Eva Olid
Picture of Eva Olid
Manchester United Women boss Eva Olid was speaking to the media ahead of her side’s trip to Villa Park to face Aston Villa.
Everton result
Last weekend, United’s momentum slowed as they drew 0-0 with Everton, and the manager described it as a “bad day at the office.”
She also explained, “sometimes you have a bad day, but you still need to find a way to win, even when you haven’t played well, when you concede from a set piece or when you make a mistake that leads to a goal.” Olid also added that it must remain one bad day and that she expects a reaction from her side.
Olid also added that while she watches games afterwards and thinks about what messages she can send her players to help them improve, it is not worth spending too much time reflecting on the past.
The manager was also asked how players deal with disappointment in the squad, and she explained, “in a squad of 25 players, you have different personalities. Some players deal with things calmly, while others become frustrated. Everyone has different personalities and different ways of dealing with disappointment. We try to make sure that everyone can express what they feel. You cannot stop emotions or feelings.”
Difference between league and cup
United have scored nine goals in the league but 23 in the cup, and Olid was asked if the preparation for the matches was different.
She retorted, “the preparation is the same for cup and league matches. As you know, we work on attacking and defending. We also always have finishing and final-third exercises, as well as attacking exercises where we work on combinations and movements to penetrate and score goals.”
Olid claimed that cup matches have meant that they have not been able to train as much as she would like, but this has been a good week as they have had four training sessions to implement ideas.
Elaborating further on the difficulties of a busy schedule, she said, “yes, for me it has been a challenge because I’m new. I arrived in the middle of pre-season and had just three weeks to work on tactics before the league started. From the middle of September onwards, I haven’t had a full week of training. You want to work on a lot of things, but you don’t have the time to develop your identity and game model.”
Upcoming matches
United’s next four matches are against sides lower than them in the table, and Olid was asked if she set points targets over periods of time. She explained that she did not and that her approach is to “work on a game-by-game basis because then you’re simply focusing on getting the next three points. It doesn’t matter who you are playing or whether they are above or below you in the table.”
Improvements
Olid admitted that she is happy with her side’s progress but claimed there are more things she wants her side to work on.
She added, we “want to create more opportunities to score, get into the final third more often and score more goals. That’s the most important thing in football. We also need to keep working on the different ways we can connect with each other to be successful in the final third.”
Injury updates
Olid explained, “Scarlett (Hill), she was injured in the cup, she’s out. Jess Anderson has not been training too this week, [because of an issue with] the knee. The others, we start with some colds and flu this week, then maybe some players were not feeling well one day in training. But, apart from that, nothing else.”
Villa challenge
Finally, speaking on what type of challenge Villa will present on Sunday, she added, “I’m really surprised by how clear they are tactically in what they do. They use their strengths really well, they stretch the opposition and they have a lot of threat in the spaces.”
She elaborated, “I like the way they play tactically. They are very practical in how they use their strengths. I think they’ve been having some really good performances as a team, and I expect it to be a difficult and competitive match.”
Featured image by Jess Hornby via Getty Images
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