Central pay for slow start
Football is a game of two halves, which Central Women’s team coach Matthew Kilsby had to emphasise to his side after their 3-0 loss to Capital on Sunday.
In their second round match of the ASB Women’s League, the Central side’s first-half complacency saw them conceded three goals within 10 minutes - the 28th, 30th and 38th - to be pushed out of the game before they had a chance to get into it.
‘‘We started below par and maybe just went into the game with a little bit too much belief in what we’d previously done against them.’’
The sides played twice in preparation for the season, with Central winning 1-0 away and 5-4 at home.
The Central side started the game with little offensive flow, with their compact attacking play providing limited options to gain some momentum.
Down by three at the half, the team discussed their playing models and how they should be working on the pitch and were able to put together a strong half of football.
However, been done.
Kilsby said it was a similar showing to their opening match against Northern United, where their play dropped off in the second half and they fell to a 3-0 defeat.
‘‘We can’t afford to be that team that is a one half team. The season is too short for that.’’
Despite the loss, Kilsby said there was plenty to be happy about in the way the side playing in the second half and now it was just a matter of sustaining that play throughout a match.
‘‘We’ve played two really good halves of football in the first two weeks, the goal now is to be able to put them together so we can play at that level from the opening minute right through to the 94th, with stoppage time and all,’’ Kilsby said. the damage had Pep Guardiola may have thought it a bad day when he suffered a fifth match without a win on Sunday but it was nothing compared to the nightmare that befell his old managerial rival Jose Mourinho on an extraordinary afternoon of Premier League action.
Guardiola’s Manchester City went back to the top of the table on goal difference after a 1-1 draw at home to Southampton, leaving him to reflect glumly on a five-game winless streak for only the second time in his garlanded career.
A couple of hours later, though, his Manchester United rival Mourinho, a general not used to humiliation, was forced to sit at a ground he once commanded and see his side ripped apart 4-0 as Chelsea produced one of the standout displays of the season at Stamford Bridge.
The results saw the battle at the summit hot up with only one point now separating the top five.City lead Arsenal and Liverpool, with all three teams on 20 points, while Chelsea’s triumph shoots them up to fifth, level on 19 with fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.
United, though, are now seventh on 14 points, one adrift of Everton, and with the pressure mounting on Mourinho, Wednesday’s League Cup clash with Guardiola’s men at Old Trafford takes on huge significance.
This was only the second time that a Mourinho team have conceded four goals in the Premier League. For that to happen at Stamford Bridge was unthinkable for the Portuguese, who began the day with a hug from John Terry and ended it with what appeared some bitter words in the ear of his opposite number Antonio Conte.
United had just been ripped apart with goals from Pedro — the quickest in the Premier League this season — Gary Cahill, Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante, and, as the clock ticked down, the Italian gesticulated to the crowd for even more noise.
Neither manager would reveal what was said in the post-match exchange but Conte said he was entitled to act as he did.
‘‘If you want to cut my emotion, then I go home and change my job,’’ he said.
Having held out for 90 minutes in the goalless affair at Liverpool last week, United fell