Title setback for Spurs Ladies

Spurs Ladies suffered a setback in their hunt for the FA Women’s Championship title following a 2-1 defeat at home to Sheffield United on Sunday, writes Rosie Bonass.

The Lilywhites made a disappointing return to league action having not played in a competitive game since the 1-0 home victory over Leicester in February.

Jessica Naz recovered from the injury which kept her out of the side’s last two games to fire Spurs ahead early in the second half, but the Blades took full advantage of two defensive errors to shock Spurs at Theobalds Lane - Ebony Salmon and Jade Pennock the goalscorers for the visitors.

The defeat sees Spurs drop into second place, now one point behind Manchester United, who won at Charlton and still have a game in hand - the two teams go head-to-head at Cheshunt next Sunday (31 March).

Spurs started well and had an early attempt on goal after Naz combined with Rianna Dean, who teed up Josie Green for her shot that went wide of the crossbar after three minutes.

The visitors looked sharp in attack and Chloe Morgan was called into action on two occasions within five minutes. The goalkeeper did well to save a thunderous strike from Bex Rayner, before preventing Salmon’s effort from distance.

The hosts went in front within 10 minutes of the interval and Ashleigh Neville was superb in the build-up to find Bianca Baptiste - her ball over the top put Naz through on goal and the young forward coolly slotted it past Fran Bentley.

Sheffield found an equaliser nine minutes later through Salmon, who joined the Blades on loan from Manchester United in January. The Spurs defence failed to deal with a long ball from Bentley and Salmon was alert to capitalise on the error and beat Morgan from close range.

Ten minutes later, Dean had the perfect opportunity to respond following a superb cross in from Megan Wynne but the striker sent the ball inches wide.

The Blades looked threatening throughout the entire game and a second goal for them in the 90th minute proved to be the winner after Pennock converted Rayner’s free-kick, leaving the home side distraught at the final whistle.

Match reaction

“The girls are obviously disappointed and rightly so,” said manager Karen Hills at full-time. “They will hopefully go away and be self-critical and we’ll all come back in and work exceptionally hard and put it right for next week. We knew they were going to put pressure on us, we know they are a good side and ultimately, they brought a game plan and stopped us playing and we found it hard to deal with. Their goalkeeper was outstanding and their number nine was causing us all kinds of problems. Our girls have got to find a way to win games. When you go 1-0 up, you expect to do better. Individual mistakes don’t normally happen so it was disappointing to see that today, especially on a nice afternoon with a good crowd, but that’s football and we’ve just got to make sure we put it right."

Jessica Naz added: “It was a hard game today. We didn’t play well and we could’ve given more, we created a lot of chances which we should have put away. This game is over for us, we have four left and they’re all finals. We have to go into the next game and win it. I think we maybe put ourselves under pressure a bit and we let the pressure get to us. We’re going to get back into training and get our heads right for the game against United on Sunday."

Match data

FA Women's Championship

Goals: Spurs Ladies – Naz 55; Sheffield United – Salmon 64, Pennock 90.

Referee: Law Bik Chi.

Venue: Cheshunt FC.

Attendance: 502.