Rita Guarino: West Ham are improving ‘step by step’ | OneFootball

Despite facing relegation this season, West Ham manager Rita Guarino is confident in her team’s ability to improve and avoid the dreaded drop.

The Hammers are fighting a relegation battle with Liverpool but are still improving under their new boss.

Rita Guarino: West Ham still improving

West Ham hired Rita Guarino midway through the season with the hopes of saving their campaign.

The relegation battle this season currently looks to be between Liverpool and West Ham, with both teams three points adrift of Everton in 10th.

But nobody is safe yet and there is still 10 games to play in what has been a very competitive season.

Despite their position in the table, Guarino has full faith in her team who are improving with every game that passes.

“Every game is important to learn better what we need,” she said. “I know that the intensity of the game here, I know that there are high, high, very quality players. So I was not surprised of that.

“So the learning is about how we can do better is I’m very focused on my team, not to the opponent. Honestly, because I think that in every game we can improve a lot. So is the learning is about us and how to help the team to be better, step by step.”

The Hammers face another struggling WSL side this weekend, with a trip away to ninth place Leicester.

After easing past Championship promotion hopefuls Newcastle in the FA Cup last week West Ham will be confident on getting a result away from home against the Foxes.

Can West Ham avoid relegation?

Only the team that finishes last this season is facing relegation and even then it’s not guaranteed.

With the WSL expanding to 14 teams from this year, third place in the Championship will face bottom of the WSL in a playoff for the final spot in the top flight.

The top two finishing teams in WSL2 will gain automatic promotion to form a bigger first division.

While they haven’t been much better under Guarino, there are certainly signs of improvement from West Ham at the start of 2026.

With games against Leicester, Everton and Brighton coming up, West Ham are at a real crunch point in their campaign.

Guarino would no doubt be happy with one win from the three as long as Liverpool continue to drop points at the bottom of the table.