West Ham bounce back by beating Lewes

A Leanne Kiernan opener followed by a Kenza Dali brace had West Ham leading 3-0 at half-time.

West Ham continued to create opportunities in the second half but Lewes managed to keep the score at 3-0 and pulled one back with less than 15 minutes to play through Chloe Winchester.

West Ham had the majority of the ball early on and created a number of chances with Jacynta Galabadaarachchi being involved in most of them.

The 18-year-old picked up a loose ball and saw her shot saved by Faye Baker before pulling the ball back to Alisha Lehmann, who dragged her shot wide moments later.

After 24 minutes West Ham broke the deadlock after Galabadaarachchi ran at the Lewes defence before sliding in for Kiernan to tuck it past Baker.

West Ham doubled their lead five minutes later after Galabadaarachchi was brought down in the box by Charley Boswell moments after being denied her first goal for the club – Dali converted from the spot.

In the 40th minute Dali scored her second and West Ham’s third after she broke into the box and slotted home.

Lewes picked up a conciliation goal in the 78th minute after Winchester got on the end of a low cross and saw her shot beat Courtney Brosnan.

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Matt Beard: “I’m really pleased with the first-half performance, I thought we were excellent.

“I wouldn’t say we dropped our standards but instead of doing things simple we stopped doing as we did in the first half, but at the end of the day we got the win which was important.

“The Chelsea result went our way against Tottenham. Reading have to play Chelsea in the last game, so it all goes down to that last game to qualify out the group.”

On Galabadaarachchi: “She’s really coming on leaps and bounds. We’re doing a lot of work with her on the training pitch.

“She was excellent tonight, I felt in the second-half she tried too hard, she really wanted to get her goal tonight but listen, she’s a young player, she’s going to learn from the first and second half tonight. In the first half I thought she was unplayable.

“We can all see the talent and potential there, as she gets older and gets more minutes she’s just going to get better.”

Fran Alonso: “We started the game very bad and very slow but we only had 15 minutes to warm up which isn’t enough. It was not the fault of anyone it was just traffic.

“They (West Ham) were very good as well. We weren’t very well organised, but they were very good in the first half and we couldn’t stop them, they could break us down very easily and it was very hard.

“The second half was much better for us. They didn’t really hurt us and we hit them on the counter - we were much better in possession as well.

“I’m very happy with the second half after the team talk we had at half-time but obviously all in all the game is not a great game for us because we don’t like to lose.”

West Ham [4-3-3]: Courtney Brosnan, Cecilie Kvamme, Brooke Hendrix, Gilly Flaherty (capt), Alisha Lehmann, Leanne Kiernan, Katharina Baunach, Kate Longhurst, Jacynta Galabadaarachchi, Kenza Dali, Laura Vetterlein

Substitutes: Wiktoria Kiszkis for Kiernan 45, Adriana Leon for Lehmann 61, Tessel Middag for Longhurst 61

Substitutes not used: Anna Moorhouse

Goals: Kiernan 24, Dali 29, 40

Bookings: Kiszkis

Lewes [4-4-2]: Faye Baker, Samantha Quayle, Rhian Cleverley, Caitlin Hayes, Emma Jones, Ellie Noble, Charley Boswell, Danielle Lane, Sophie O’Rourke, Filippa Sava, Chloe Winchester

Substitutes: Ella Powell for Quayle 33, Emily Donovan for Boswell 45

Goal: Winchester 78

Referee: Kirsty Dowle

Attendance: 652