Spurs Women failed to score on the road for the first time since the opening day of the season as Manchester United emerged from the fog with all three points at Leigh Sports Village on Sunday.
Three second-half goals gave our former Championship promotion rivals a 3-0 victory against us for the second time this campaign in the Barclays FA Women's Super League, but it could have been a different story had home goalkeeper Mary Earps not saved brilliantly from Rianna Dean shortly after half-time with the score at 0-0.
Emma Mitchell and Dean both hit the woodwork in the space of three minutes as we tried to rally back after Katie Zelem's penalty and Jess Sigsworth's close-range effort had given the Reds Devils a two-goal lead, but Zelem finished off the scoring with a late free-kick. United finished the game with 10 players after the stoppage-time dismissal of Ella Toone.
In a real pea-souper where visibility across the pitch was poor, we stifled the home side well in the first half and looked to hit them on the counter. Jane Ross had a header blocked in our six-yard box inside the opening minute before being denied by a sharp save from goalkeeper Chloe Morgan - in for her first league start of the season with Becky Spencer sidelined. Morgan later saved Leah Dalton's header after Jackie Groenen had shot wide for United before our best chance of the opening half on 26 minutes, Josie Green's shot from distance appearing to catch Earps off-guard as she back-pedalled to parry the ball upwards on her line.
Morgan made another good stop to keep out a low angled drive from Ross just before the break but our afternoon hinged on a big chance for centre-forward Dean 10 minutes after the restart. Gemma Davison played her in behind the defence but her left-footed strike was well saved by Earps.
United were continuing to apply pressure on our back line and when referee Edward Duckworth deemed Mitchell to have fouled Hayley Ladd among a sea of bodies in the box, Zelem took full advantage to finally break our resistance from the spot in the 58th minute. And seven minutes later we were left with a real struggle on our hands to take anything away from the game when a corner dropped to the feet of Sigsworth and she couldn't miss from a couple of yards out.
Our best spell of the second half followed as Mitchell's dipping shot from range crashed off the woodwork and Kit Graham - off the bench after starting all of our previous WSL games - couldn't hit the target after collecting the rebound. Three minutes later, Dean latched onto a long ball forward in the left channel and carried it around Earps, only to hit the near post from a tight angle. But after centre-back Hannah Godfrey was penalised for a challenge on Sigsworth 25 yards from goal, Zelem stepped up to curl a free-kick beyond the wall and down into the bottom corner to make it 3-0 in the 87th minute. United's Toone was shown a straight red card in the fifth minute of added time following an off-the-ball incident, but it mattered little to the hosts who jumped above us and up into fourth place in the table with their win.
At full-time, Head Coach Juan Amoros said: “I think that the girls worked really hard, but in football if you don’t put your chances away then you get punished. I think in a game where you hit the crossbar three times and have such a big opportunity, like the one vs one, but it finishes 3-0 from three set pieces, it’s never going to reflect the reality of the game. I thought it was very even and there were some decisions that really unbalanced the game. Games are won and lost in the boxes and today we should have been a bit more clinical. The whole team today can hold their head high and hopefully against Barnsley next week we can be clinical and put things right.”
