Birmingham City remain second from bottom in WSL1 after losing 3-0 to Sunderland at the Hetton Centre on Saturday. The Blues go into the international break still without a win in the league.
First half goals from Beth Mead, Brooke Chaplen and Victoria Greenwell handed Sunderland their 3rd victory of their debut season in the top flight, where they have quickly adapted to life in WSL1 and moved up to 3rd in the table.
Sunderland boss welcomed back Rachael Furness from injury and the midfielder made an immediate impact, setting up Beth Mead after just 25 seconds. The in-form striker slotted home on her 20th birthday to open the scoring.
Birmingham have managed only one league goal all season and their lack of confidence in front of goal shone through. Freda Ayisi had a golden opportunity to level the match when she got one-on-one with the hosts’ keeper after 6 minutes, but her shot went narrowly wide.
Whilst Birmingham continued to waste chances, Sunderland were clinical and Mead turned provider when she squared for Brooke Chaplen to double the lead on the half hour mark.
The home side then made sure of the points on the stroke of half time when Victoria Greenwell’s 25 yard free kick, placed to perfection, sailed into the top corner off the inside of the post.
The second half passed a lot quieter than the first. Birmingham had one real chance to grab a goal back when Kerys Harrop’s near post header was cleared off the line by a Sunderland defender.
But the Black Cats held on to secure the victory and their first clean sheet of the season – much to the delight of goalkeeper Rachael Laws.
“We’ve waited a long time for a clean sheet, we’re six games in now,” said Laws. “We were very good defensively, we’ve worked hard on it over the week and we proved we can keep a clean sheet and score goals.”
“We scored in the first minute and they had a chance soon after but didn’t put it away. To have nine points going into the mid-season break is very satisfying as if we’d been offered nine points we’d have snatched your hand off.”
Birmingham have now played 4 matches without finding the net but manager David Parker was keen to praise his team’s build up play.
Speaking after the game he said: “I’m disappointed with the result but in the first half I thought we were really good. They’ve had four efforts on goal and scored with three of them.
“We’ve had four or five efforts and we’ve not taken any of them, but that’s football. It’s a cruel, cruel game and we’ve been punished for not taking our chances.”
