Sheffield United defender Charlotte Newsham admitted her frustration that the team couldn’t turn their good performance into points as they slipped to a 1-0 defeat to Southampton at Bramall Lane this afternoon.
There was little to separate the two sides in South Yorkshire but Southampton forward Ella Pusey was able to take the chance which came her way to secure three points for her side.
When speaking in the post-match media huddle, Sheffield United defender Newsham said that she felt that her side dominated the game and that the team were frustrated not to come away with at least a point.
“We are disappointed because it feels like we dominated most of the game,” Newsham said. “If you look at the stats, we probably had 90% possession and we spent the whole of the second half in their half.
“It is disappointing that we haven’t put our chances away and been clinical in the final third. It is something that we are working on and hopefully, it will come into play.”
Set-pieces looked to be The Blades’ best chance of finding a way back into the game. Neil Redfearn’s side had plenty but failed to profit when it came to delivering the final touch. Newsham said that Sheffield United need to keep working on their set-piece routines.
She said “It wasn’t our day, there were a few scrambles and on any other day, it’d go either side of the keeper but today, it didn’t want to go in for us.
“We need to work on our set plays because we’ve had over double figures so we do need to be more clinical with those. I think they will start to come off as we are working hard on them in training.”
Despite being part-time, Sheffield United have competed well with the full-time sides in the Barclays Women’s Championship in recent weeks. Newsham said that a switch to full-time operations in the future may make the difference in being on the right side of the fine margins.
“Last week against Bristol, I thought we ran them ragged at times and again, Southampton are a full-time team that have come up and have put all the money into it,” Newsham said. “It is frustrating from us because we know we have got more to give.
“If we were full-time and can get backed by the club, we would compete even more with these teams because it’s fine margins and that might be the difference.”
Sheffield United return to action next Sunday when they travel to St Andrew’s to take on Birmingham City.