Liverpool Women suffered another defeat on Sunday to London City Lionesses after the hosts were awarded a faulty penalty late in the match, breaking the deadlock and resigning Liverpool to another scoreless afternoon. Disappointing doesn’t even really begin to cover it, but here we are again, with the Reds in 11th place and no points, still. Manager Gareth Taylor still asserts that they are working on finding their new identity, but with four losses in a row, it’s a little hard to take, especially
with heavyweights like Manchester City on the horizon.
“We’re changing completely the identity of what we were previously. That in itself can be really challenging and tough,” Taylor said following the match on Sunday.
“There were some parts to today where you could take some real positives from that. But, of course, like I said, we’re suffering a bit with the results side of things and that’s what people look at and rightly so. We always knew this would probably be the reality of assessing the squad and where we’re at.”
Considering our previous identity at least kept us mid-table, that doesn’t look like such a bad thing from 11th place. Of course, it also feels like Taylor is also still figuring out the best configuration of the squad, as evidenced by his substitutions throughout the match, trying to find the right attacking formula.
“I think what we’re seeing at the moment is snippets – but snippets aren’t enough. I think we controlled most of the first half,” the manager explained.
“We lost that control in the second half due to a number of things like decision making and a little bit of fitness. I think to be able to repeatedly win the ball back, like we want to do, it can take it out of you and we need to get to that level. I think we’re seeing some signs and some periods in games where we’re in control.
“Like I said, it’s not enough and we’re suffering with results. It’s what we were brought in to do. We knew that we lost good players from last season and we know that we’re at a level that we need to improve and it’s going to take time, unfortunately, as much as we want it quickly. There are some positive signs and the girls are working tremendously hard – we’re just suffering at the moment.”
The problem with suffering is that there is usually an end to it and a way to stop the suffering. Right now it feels less like Taylor knows how to get out of the suffering and more like he’s stuck in the suffering with us. The buck always stops at the manager’s desk, and Taylor is no exception to that. It feels very much like the league has progressed much further than Liverpool is capable of catching up with.
“I think it’s hard when you’re comparing with other teams. I think the only team we want to compare with is the one we have been previously,” Taylor added.
“We’ve had some personnel changes, which happens at every club in every summer, but I think when you see the type of players and the experience they brought to the club then they [London City] are kind of accelerating that process a little bit. It doesn’t guarantee you will get instant results and I think for them it’s about consolidating this season.”
The ultimate problem of the day was that a penalty was given when the contact was directed at our goalkeeper, but the penalty was given the other way. Taylor appeared to see a different situation when the decisive moment happened, though, and backed up the referee by rather putting the team at fault.
“It’s a long diagonal ball, which we need to defend better. It gets caught up in the wind a little bit and we make a rash decision in a moment of the game where I felt it was petering out,” Taylor said.
“We were igniting them a little bit. We were playing a little bit fast from our build up and putting ourselves in situations we didn’t need to. For me, I wasn’t surprised when a penalty was given.”
Another banner day for Liverpool Women, who go on to face Manchester City at Anfield next Sunday October 12th. No guarantees the Anfield curse for the Women won’t strike again.
