This game saw the WSL’s bottom two meet, both knowing the loser would spend Christmas in the relegation play-off place.<\/p>\n
It has been a particularly difficult first part of the season for Liverpool manager Taylor, who has had major personnel issues to deal with alongside his team’s poor form.<\/p>\n
The return of veteran defender Bonner from injury on Sunday was initially very welcome but the 34-year-old’s controversial early dismissal – her first in 156 WSL games – serves as yet another blow for the embattled Taylor.<\/p>\n
In a game where Liverpool would have hoped to be competitive and potentially earn a first league win of the campaign, they failed to have a shot on target during a first half in which they were constantly on the back foot. This followed their 3-0 loss at Villa on Thursday when they also did not have an effort on goal.<\/p>\n
However, in Olsson they have a constant get-out-of-jail card. The Swede now has five WSL goals this season and is a rare bright spark for the side in a dire campaign.<\/p>\n
For West Ham, things are not much better. Liverpool’s failings have helped mask the Hammers’ abysmal WSL record after 11 games, with them collecting just five points.<\/p>\n
The Hammers wasted the first-half chances they created after Bonner’s early red – Ueki heading straight at Kirby from close range and the Reds keeper making a spreading stop from Asseyi.<\/p>\n
And while they do have attacking talent, West Ham’s defence is a major concern. They are shipping at a rate of more than two a match – 24 conceded in 11 games, the most conceded in the league. <\/p>\n
Next year may be just as tough for these two sides as 2025 proved to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This game saw the WSL’s bottom two meet, both knowing the loser would spend Christmas in the relegation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-315703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}