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Everton Ladies suffered their first Continental Cup loss today, going down 2-1 against Manchester City Women at Academy Stadium. The WSL 1 champions are a strong side and have yet to lose a game this season but the Toffees put in a good effort.
Izzy Christiansen scored the first goal after a long pass from captain Stephanie Houghton. Although City dominated in possession, the Blue Girls proved that they are competitive and came back stronger in the second half. Simone Magill scored the lone goal for Everton by getting a header off of a free kick from Chloe Kelly to tie the game at one.
Goalkeeper Kirstie Levell had a few impressive saves but wasn’t able to stop Nikita Parris from scoring the winning goal in the 80th minute.
@lilkeets gave City the edge in a close encounter.
— Man City Women (@ManCityWomen) November 5, 2017
Onto the next one... #ManCity pic.twitter.com/zTToPAgSFx
Coach Andy Spence saw a lot of positives:
“We’re delighted with the performance, particularly in the second half. In the first half, City showed their class.
“They’re a top team, there’s no doubt about that and I’ve got huge respect for the way they go about playing their football.
“They’re rightly at the top of the women’s game in England and they’re proving it in Europe. We’ve played them twice now. We lost narrowly 3-2 when we probably should’ve drawn and we were in a position of drawing again.”
Everton currently sits in 3rd place in their group for the Continental Cup. The top two teams in the group will advance to the next stage. The Toffees have a good chance of making that happen as their next Cup game on November 16th is against WSL 2 side Oxford United Women.
Everton get back to league play this Saturday against Yeovil Town Ladies FC, who are also winless in this season’s WSL 1 so far.
How they lined up:
Everton (4-2-3-1): Georgia Brougham, Gabby George, Danielle Turner; Angharad James, Megan Finnigan; Claudia Walker, Simone Magill, Siri Worm; Courtney Sweetman-Kirk, Kirstie Levell; Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah
Substitutes: Chloe Kelly, Faye Bryson, Olivia Chance
Manchester City (4-3-3): Stephanie Houghton, Jennifer Beattie, Demi Stokes; Jill Scott, Keira Walsh, Izzy Christiansen; Nikita Parris, Georgia Stanway, Claire Emslie, Karen Bardsley; Abbie McManus
Substitutes: Melissa Lawley, Megan Campbell