Liverpool have to be prepared for Chelsea reaction says manager Beard | OneFootball

Liverpool manager Matt Beard says that his side must be prepared for a reaction from Chelsea when the two teams meet at Prenton Park on Wednesday evening.

The Blues suffered a painful exit from this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League at the weekend. Chelsea lost 2-1 on aggregate to European champions FC Barcelona at the semi-final stage.

Chelsea now return to Barclays Women’s Super League action at Liverpool and The Reds manager Beard says that his side need to be prepared for a reaction.

“They will be heightened from that,” Beard said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “Not just the players but Emma [Hayes] after the game, you could see that it hurt them. Sometimes, that can have a good effect in terms of the next game.

“We’ve got to make sure that we are prepared for a reaction. We have spoken about it throughout the week but then on the flip side, they’ve lost the FA Cup semi-final and they’re out of the Champions League, that doesn’t happen a lot for this Chelsea side, so it works both ways.

“We just need to concentrate on ourselves. We know that they’re a top side, we found that out at Stamford Bridge earlier on in the season, so we’ve just got to make sure that we turn up and we are on our A-game.”

Liverpool currently occupy fifth position in the league table, although they still have fourth-placed Manchester United in their sights. Beard went on to say that his side are still aiming to end the campaign in the top four.

He said “We’ve said all along that our goal was to improve on last year. We’ve already done that and now we have two home games and an away game against Leicester and we want to try and pick up as many points as we can, we want to push for that fourth spot. Mathematically, we can still do it, so we want to fight for that.”

Liverpool’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Chelsea is scheduled to kick-off at 7pm on Wednesday evening. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.