Glasgow City moved three points clear at the top of the Scottish Women’s Premier League following a 3-1 win over Celtic at Lennoxtown. Although delighted with the win, City Head Coach Eddie Wolecki Black believes his side need to up their performances. He said: “It is great to get three points, but to be honest, this was one of the poorest performances we have ever had at Lennoxtown. I was disappointed last week with our performance against Hibs and today I feel the same. I cannot fault the team for a good win, but we know we are far better than our performances of late and we now look forward to our semi-final on Thursday and I hope we will turn the corner and start playing the way we can in that match. This group of players have never let me down in the past and they take great pride in their performances and I am sure they will respond in the typical City manner.”
(c) Graeme Berry The home side made the better of the starts and had the first chance of the match as Gemma Fay hit a long ball over the entire City defence to Hayley Cunningham. However, as Lee Alexander raced out of the City goal to thwart the danger, Cunningham tried an audacious effort from nearly 50 yards, but her effort went wide.City recorded their own first effort 13 minutes in as Jane Ross laid the ball off to fellow striker Lisa Evens, but her left foot strike went over the bar. Soon after Emma Mitchell came the closest to opening the scoring when she unleashed a trade mark powerful left foot strike from the edge of the box which cannoned off the Celtic cross bar and away to safety.City survived a scramble in their box as Alexander smothered the danger from a Celtic corner before City hit back with Lisa Evans having a good run and shot which went just passed the post. It was a sign of things to come as less than 60 seconds later, Evans received the ball from full back Nicky Docherty and drove at the Celtic defence before firing a great effort into the far corner out of Fay’s reach to put the away side 1-0 ahead. Jane Ross headed just over from a Mitchell cross as City ended the first half the stronger of the two teams.Whatever the City staff said in the changing room at half time certainly had an immediate affect as less than 10 seconds after the re-start Leanne Crichton fired home her second goal for her new club and the second goal of the day as she hit a fantastic effort from the edge of the box into the back of the net.A determined Celtic fought back and got a goal through Suzanne Grant to reduce the deficit only four minutes later as she headed home a set-piece.Glasgow City then had a few more efforts to put the game out of the reach of their rivals with Fay pulling off a good save from Emma Mitchell in particular. However, Fay could do nothing to prevent former team mate Jo Love making it 3-1 for after Rachel Corsie had headed a City corner back across the box and into her path to finish from less than 10 yards out.With only four minutes to go, the game was stopped for over half an hour for Celtic and Scotland Under 19 full back Fiona Brown to receive treatment after a blow to the chest. The game eventually resumed and City went on to see the match out. Everyone wishes talented Brown a speedy recovering and hopefully she will be back fighting fit soon.
Source: FOOTYMAD
