Darren Carter said that three goals conceded in the space of six first half minutes was criminal as Birmingham City slumped to a 5-0 defeat to Manchester United at the Leigh Sports Village this afternoon.
After recording a shock 2-0 victory over Arsenal at St Andrew’s last weekend, the Blues found themselves 3-0 down inside 20 minutes against Manchester United at the Leigh Sports Village on what was a tough afternoon for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League strugglers.
When speaking to the media including FAWSL Full-Time after the match, Carter was critical of his side’s early collapse.
“We came out flat, we came out sluggish in that first 20 minutes and I’ve just said to the players that even when things are not going your way, you need to find a way to grind it out and stay in the game.
“To concede three goals in six or seven minutes was criminal, it can’t happen. The manner of the goals conceded, it’s not us, it is not what we are about and we gave ourselves an uphill task after that first 20 minutes.”
Birmingham City lost the second half 1-0 but it could have been different had Louise Quinn’s half-volley not come back off the crossbar. Carter was in no mood to take the positives from that, saying that he dislikes looking at small wins.
He said “I hate the fact that we are going into the second half 4-0 down and we are talking about small wins, talking about drawing the second half, I hate it. It is how the game went and you have to manage it in a certain way.
“We got into the final third in the second half but we didn’t really test the keeper. Yes, the skipper has had that effort off the bar and we have had a couple of chances where we weren’t quite there and we didn’t have that sharpness. I draw on the resilience of the group because it could go one of two ways at that stage, we could crumble and lose very heavily but the fact that we did concede just the one goal shows that there was a response.
“We are under no illusions that we lost the game 5-0 so there’s lots to work on and we will get back to work on Tuesday.”
Birmingham City are back in action next weekend when they travel to Reading for their next Barclays FA Women’s Super League match.
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