West Ham boss Beard says Tottenham draw was a fair result

West Ham United's Laura Vetterlein (left) and Tottenham Hotspur's Kit Graham battle for the ball during the FA Women's Super League match at The Hive Stadium, London. (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Tottenham took the lead via a Grace Fisk own goal before Canadian international Adriana Leon equalised with a stunning solo effort in the 57th minute.

Beard told the club website after his side picked up their first point of the season: “I think, overall, a point each might be a fair result in the end. It was a little bit frustrating that we didn’t take our chance right at the end, but I felt we started slowly and then grew into the game.

“With a lot of new signings making their debuts today as well, I felt we gave an okay account of ourselves.

Getting back into games quickly after conceding has been something we’ve spoken about.

“We played Brighton in our final game of pre-season, and that was the first goal we conceded, and the way we responded after that was excellent.

“We reset ourselves on Sunday and we got a deserved goal. For the final 15 to 20 minutes, it became too transitional for me. We’ve got to just manage that a bit better.”

Seven of the Hammers summer signings made their debuts with Mackenzie Arnold, Maz Pacheco and Katerina Svitkova all starting while Rachel Daly, Emily van Egmond, Ruby Grant and Nor Mustafa came off the bench.

Beard went on to explain how happy he is with how his new additions are settling into life in East London.

“We’ve had a good pre-season as a group,the most important thing for me was keeping the players we wanted to keep from last year as our core group, and then pre-season saw us get some good detail in.

“A lot of the work we did last year means the players already have an understanding of what’s being asked of them.

“We’ve been pleased with how everyone is settling in and we’re looking forward to seeing what we can achieve this year.

“Rachel is going to add goals and experience, she’s only been with us a couple of days so I kind of threw her in at the deep end.

“But I just felt we needed the ability to change things if things aren’t going well across the board, we can do that now. We’ve got some real depth to this squad.”

West Ham now turn their attention to a huge clash with Arsenal on Saturday evening the Gunners winning 6-1 over Reading on the opening day.

Beard however went on to say that they can’t let the Arsenal result distract them going into the game at their new home the Chigwell Construction Stadium.

“We’ve just got to concentrate on ourselves. We need to play our game and don’t worry about who we’re playing.”

“We’ll prepare our team for the game and our girls need to focus on what they do well.

“Arsenal will be a tough game, because they’re a good side, and it’s a tough league this year. We’ll set ourselves up to give ourselves the best chance to get the win.”

That game with Arsenal kicks off at 5.25 on Saturday evening and is going to be broadcast live on BT Sport infront of the Women’s Super League’s first pilot crowd of the season.