City Reserves lose season opener
Glasgow City Reserves lost 4-1 to Wishaw in their season opener.
Going into the first league game of the season, City’s Reserves could not have been any less prepared with the loss of some key players due to injury and suspension. However, this provided the opportunity for the starting 11 to step up to the plate and show that even although the squad was deflated they could make their mark in the team.
Citystarted well with some decent possession in the opening periods, with a chances in particular falling to midfielder Sarah Major from distance. The Wishaw keeper to her credit picked up all of City’s efforts comfortably in the air, as the home side worked to their plan of working hard to prevent openings for City and playing on the counter attack.
The home side did indeed take the lead on 24 minutes, capitalising on a long ball over the top.
Half time 1-0
The second half saw City enjoy most of the possession again, but the excellent pressure from Wishaw made life difficult for the away side, especially with Wishaw's counter attacking play.
Wishaw’s game plan soon paid off again as they scored their second of the day, quickly followed by goal number three after some poor decisions by the City backline.
The away side restored a glimmer of hope when they pulled one back from the penalty spot. Sarah Major was hauled down in the box and up stepped Lindsay Birrell to coolly slot home.
By now the game seemed beyond the visitors, but to their credit they kept pushing for another goal and striker Laura Crossan was unfortunate a few times not to finish from 10 yards. Proof that it was simply not to be City’s day was cemented when Wishaw scored their fourth goal, minutes from full time.
Full time 4-1.
Commenting on the match, Reserves Coach Fiona Baker said, “We aredisappointedwe lost the match becauseour preparation leading up to the new season has been going well. However, the last 2 weeks has seen us lose players to injury and this is obviously disappointing. Today wehad 12 fit players from a possible 17 and that's not ideal but the starting 11 had tostand up and be counted. To be fair to Wishaw their game plan was solely to hunt and close us down whenwe were inpossession and they did that well and in the meantime managed to score 4 goals without really passing the ball.
“However, as inall games there arethe positives to be takenfrom the 90 minutes. We worked hard and never gave up, we stuck to our system and managed to link up some decent possession at times and our discipline was impeccable. This week attraining we will work on what went wrong in this match and hopefully in next week’s gamewill see our rewards.”
21.03.11
