WSL Title Race: Gareth Taylor admits goal difference ‘frustration
Man City Ladies manager Gareth Taylor is full of lamentations as his side conceded a last-gasp goal at Brighton, with goal difference potentially pivotal in the Women’s Super League title race.
City beat Brighton 4-1 on Sunday, their 10th straight league win, to move level on points with WSL leaders Chelsea.
A six-goal win would have taken City top, but instead they remain behind the Blues on goal difference.
And their goal difference took a further blow in second-half stoppage time when Lee Geum-min was allowed to ghost in behind the City defence to score Brighton’s consolation goal from a low cross.
With City leading 2-0 at half-time, Taylor said he had instructed his side to actively seek more goals in the second half to try to cut the goal difference deficit – but felt this perhaps disrupted his team’s natural way of playing.
“It was the message at half-time,” Taylor told BBC Sport after the game. “Sometimes when you say that and start to go about scoring more goals, everybody starts to then probably make poor decisions.
“We spoke about decision-making. We said we wanted the scoreline to be more than the two we had and we did that. We are frustrated with the goal we gave away.
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“Maybe it’s my fault for making changes and players switching off a little bit coming onto the pitch against players who were switched on and in the flow of the game. But that can happen sometimes. It’s the balance of trying to get that right and overall I am really happy.”
Having made no changes until the 79th minute, Taylor brought off the influential Lauren Hemp, who had scored the opener and provided the assist for Mary Fowler to make it 2-0. The England forward also hit the post early in the second half.
Gareth Taylor regrets last minute goal.
“You could see today she really wanted to be the one to take responsibility in the attack to go one v one and create assists as well,” former England defender Anita Asante said on BBC Two of Hemp’s player-of-the-match performance.
“Ultimately it’s a title race and that [goal difference] is what’s going to matter at the end.”
The top six of the Women’s Super League, showing Chelsea top on 40 points with +34 goal difference, while Manchester City have +32 goal difference
In the 83rd minute, Taylor took off playmaker Yui Hasegawa and also replaced two of his defenders – which may have played a role in Lee being able to get free to score late on for Brighton.
None of these changes played a role in the destination of the points however, as City thoroughly dominated Brighton to extend their winning WSL run.
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City have won each of their 10 WSL games since losing back-to-back league games in November – the second of which was a shock 1-0 home loss to Brighton.
Only once before has a team won 10 or more games straight in the same WSL campaign, and it was City themselves in 2020-21 when they won 12 in a row – although they missed out on the title to Chelsea.