The first game of a new year and a new decade ended in disappointment for Casey Stoney as Manchester United fell 1-0 to Bristol City.
The United boss was audibly frustrated on the sideline during the game, as Bristol held the home side goalless. It’s only the second time that’s happened at Leigh Sports Village this season.
Embed from Getty ImagesStoney thinks that the performance of her team wasn’t good enough. During her post-match interview she said: “Sometimes you get what you deserve in football, we weren’t at our best today. We missed too many chances, some simple ones as well.
“There’s no positives from today at all. We’ve been saying since the first game on September 7 that we’re creating chances and not taking them.
“We did at the Etihad, we did against Arsenal, we’ve done it game after game after game. If you don’t score goals and you don’t take your chances, you are going to get punished.
“We know that teams are going to come here and try to stifle us and they did that today and they did it successfully.”
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Stoney also took full responsibility for the defeat. The former Liverpool and Arsenal player said: “I’ll go home and massively reflect on myself.
“There are lots of questions to be asked of myself and I’ll do that over the next 48 hours and now it’s my job to prepare the team and get them lifted again.
“We’ve got enough in our team to win a game like that so I have to take full responsibility in terms of preparation and setting the team up and making sure we can score goals.”
Embed from Getty ImagesLauren James shoved Gemma Evans in the first half and earned herself a booking. Tempers flared as the game continued, with fans loudly voicing their displeasure.
“We need to make sure that we keep our emotional control,” reflected Stoney. “The way you play teams like that is you move the ball quickly and you keep moving yourselves. You make sure you get in the right areas and when you get in the right areas you need to finish them.”
Looking ahead to next weekend
Manchester United have now lost three of their last five WSL games. They go on to face Liverpool at Prenton Park next Sunday.
Next Sunday’s game will give Casey Stoney the opportunity to show how ruthless she can be as a manager. She said: “This is a big period of reflection, you learn so much more when you lose and we need to learn a lot from today.
“I’ll be changing the team, we can’t perform like that and think that people can keep their shirts.”
