Powell Pleased With Second-half Improvement

Brighton & Hove Albion women’s first-team manager Hope Powell was delighted with the second-half improvement from her side, after recovering from a goal down to claim a 4-1 victory over Watford yesterday.

Powell praised the way her side rallied in the hot conditions in Lancing, but admits her players need to take more of their goalscoring chances.

She said, “I was pleased that we got the result and we performed a lot better. The weather conditions were really tough, but our energy levels were still there or thereabouts at the end.

“We’re getting fitter and proved we can compete in these conditions, but it was a little disappointing because we should’ve scored more goals.

“That’s an ongoing theme at the moment, and when we go into WSL 1, we're not going to get those opportunities.”

The manager explained how Simone Pektova’s opener proved to be a wake-up call for her side, as Albion responded through Danielle Buet’s penalty and a goal each from Ini Umotong, Bronwen Thomas and Kirsty Barton to claim all three points.

“Sometimes when you’re playing the teams that you’re expected to beat, quite often that can be your undoing.

“Thankfully their goal came very early and it made us re-evaluate ourselves, dig in and work harder.

“Credit to them, but credit to our girls for the way they came back and were quite diligent and scored four goals.

“That’s really good and says something about the team’s desire to go forward, but we need to be more clinical in front of goal more often than that.”

Albion have three league games left this season, starting with an away match against Watford on Wednesday, and Powell explained how she will need to manage the squad carefully before the season ends.

“We’ve got a couple of really tough games coming up with some injury concerns, but it also gives people an opportunity to come on and play. We play each game as it comes and we just try to do our best.

“We know after playing Watford once that we can’t assume anything because of their league position. They did very well and scored the first goal, so we had to be on top of our game.

"We know what we’ll be up against, which is a good thing. The rest and recovery will be important in the next few days to make sure we go again on Wednesday.”