Everton Women suffered their first WSL defeat of the season yesterday, going down 4-0 to the Blues.
The Toffees were valiantly defeated in last weekend’s FA Cup final by Manchester City and perhaps there was a hangover from that defeat.
Sandy MacIver was outstanding at Wembley, but it was an error from her which allowed the Blues to take the lead.
Her blocked clearance fell to Ji So-yun, who made no mistake in opening the scoring.
A Bethany England brace and a late strike by Pernille Harder added gloss to the scoreline.
The eventual margin of victory doesn’t show how well Everton battled their opponents, who are now 26 WSL games unbeaten.
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The Toffees are still fourth in the table, level on points with the Blues, although they’ve played a game more than Emma Hayes’ side.
That’s a significant early-season achievement, given the established big three in the division and the fact Manchester United are strongly challenging to gatecrash.
Manager Willie Kirk told the club’s Twitter page after the game: “Nobody will ever be able to convince me it was 4-0. The performance apart from a five minute chunk, where we lost our defensive shape, was very, very good.
“The game could have gone either way. The performance in the first half was better than when we beat them at Goodison.
“It’s a bump in the road and that’s all it is. It’s a hell of sore one because nobody wants to be on the end of a 4-0. We need to show resilience.”
A tough result to swallow and one which didn’t tell the story of the match, and Everton need a reaction next Sunday against Reading.