Spurs Women defeated by clinical City

Spurs Women made a disappointing start to the new year with a 4-1 league defeat to a clinical Manchester City side at The Hive on Sunday afternoon.

A slow start cost us dearly as a quickfire double for City from Pauline Bremer and Ellen White had the visitors 2-0 up inside five minutes.

A Rianna Dean penalty brought us back into the game, until City went on to score two more and secure three points.

Head Coaches Karen Hills and Juan Amoros named an unchanged starting line-up from our last league outing against Reading in December and new signing Emma Mitchell was named on the bench.

The visitors made a ferocious start and almost took the lead within the opening 90 seconds when Lauren Hemp had a shot saved well by Becky Spencer.

They made the early pressure count soon after, though, when Bremer turned a clever cutback from White into the far corner in the second minute.

City doubled their advantage three minutes later when White let fly from range and saw her effort find the corner past Spencer.

In the 27th minute, Dean was bundled over in the box by City captain Steph Houghton before she stepped up to take the penalty and made no mistake from 12 yards by smashing the ball into the bottom left corner to halve the deficit.

But seven minutes later, the visitors scored again, and Bremer got her second of the match by slotting Hemp’s cross into the back of the net.

Hemp herself got on the scoresheet just before the interval after White laid the ball off for her to squeeze past Spencer for City’s fourth.

Hills and Amoros introduced Lucy Quinn and debutant Mitchell into the mix at the break in an attempt to turn the tide of the game and despite improvements in our play in the second half, we simply couldn’t rally back against a strong City side.

Coach's view

At full-time, Head Coach Juan Amoros said: "We're disappointed, especially with the way we started the game, two goals in five minutes is just unacceptable for us as a team. In the second half, we adapted a couple of things and made two changes and I think our performance after the break was much better. They're a very good side but still we need to be better because we are Tottenham Hotspur Women and the girls know that we are good enough to compete against these teams but we need to make sure we do it throughout the 90 minutes."

Match data

Goals: Spurs - Dean 27 (pen); Man City - Bremer 2, 27, White 5, Hemp 44.

Yellow cards: Spurs - Green 34; Man City - Bonner 68.

Referee: Helen Conley.

Venue: The Hive.

Weather: Mostly cloudy, eight degrees

Attendance: 1,056.