Liverpool Ladies Suffer 4-0 Loss to Manchester City

Liverpool Ladies suffered their second loss in five days on Sunday, when Manchester City saw off the Reds in a 4-0 rout. Liverpool were coming off of their mid-week defeat to Arsenal and hoped to end City’s unbeaten run this season. Luck was really not on the Reds’ side though, and City went up 90 seconds into the game when an attempted clearance from Sophie Ings caught Nikita Parris in the face and bounced over the line. And things just got worse from there.

After a relatively uneventful first half, Liverpool found themselves on the back foot again when Caroline Weir brought Parris down in the box. Izzy Christiansen had no trouble scoring from the spot, and City extended their lead with another header from Parris and a final effort from Abbie McManus. Liverpool’s best chance of the game came from Beth England, who saw her effort saved.

“The game plan was out of the window after 60 seconds against a team that hasn’t lost in the league here for three years,” Liverpool coach, Scott Rodgers said after the game. “We tried to frustrate them and limited opportunities and I felt we did that in the first half but we’re still going in at half-time 1-0 down from an error that wasn’t part of the plan.

“It’s been a tough week for us, City had a week to prepare for this and we’ve had two days, it was always going to be a mountain for us.

“We had one or two half chances and the top teams will always get their chances eventually. Once it went to 2-0 it changed our mentality and we had to open up, and when you do that against a team like City you get punished.”

Liverpool will have a few days to recover from this week before they are called into action against third-tier Chichester City in the fifth round of the SSE Women’s FA Cup.