Town Women interim boss David Wright felt the Blues put in their best performance during his time at the club despite falling to a cruel 2-1 defeat to Southampton at Portman Road.

In what was the first-ever WSL 2 match at Town’s iconic home stadium, Rachel Brown struck the winner in the sixth minute of stoppage time that leaves the Blues outside the relegation zone on goal difference.

Wright felt the Saints’ dramatic winner was undeserved following his side’s pleasing performance in front of 9,142 supporters.

“Really frustrated for the girls,” he said. “In terms of the performance level, I'm really pleased. Since I’ve been in charge of the girls, that’s the best performance overall that we’ve put together.

“I thought we were dominant through most of the game, controlled Southampton really well and carried a real threat in attack.

“I thought the girls managed that moment really well because we had an opportunity right from the start to go 1-0 up ourselves. We didn’t manage to execute that and then all of a sudden get sucker punched at the other end.

“As a group, they managed it great. It didn’t knock us off track and we got back to what we wanted to execute.

“That performance level is our baseline. We’ve got to get consistent with it and keep moving forward. If we do that, we’ll be able to perform against anyone in this league.”

Despite falling behind early on, Lucy Ashworth-Clifford levelled for Town when she tapped home Sophie Peskett’s cross after 27 minutes for her second goal for the club.

In particular, Peskett was causing all sorts of problems for Saints left-back Jess Simpson.


Wright hailed: “We’ve spoke a lot in terms of what the modern-day winger looks like. It’s great credit to her of understanding what is required in terms of learning and then to execute it in the game. I thought it was a proper performance from her today.

“The girls want to play every single minute. We tried to create that environment where if you’ve got the shirt and you perform at that level, you keep it. The level of the group has gone up in terms of competing with each other for them shirts.

“They’re really good problems to have — is it Princess [Ademiluyi], Rianna [Dean] or Natasha [Thomas]? They’re three really good players there. I have a few sleepless nights at times, but I’d rather have them problems.”

Peskett poked wide after just 40 seconds during an early incident in which Tara Bourne brought down Ademiluyi on the edge of the penalty area, a challenge that went unpunished by referee Aimee Keir.

“I thought something should have happened with that decision,” Wright said. “I understand playing the advantage, but even if the player gets a yellow card then it’s a different game. It is what it is, the officials made their decisions and we can’t change it in them moments.”

Town’s annual Portman Road fixture during the March international break brought another strong crowd having previously reached more than 10,000 supporters in each of the last two seasons.

Wright, whose side have two more home matches this season at the JobServe Community Stadium, hopes many in attendance will return to Colchester and show their support.

He said: “It’s been great with the crowd that we’ve got. Even though the result went against us, hopefully the crowd really enjoyed the girls’ performance and we see a few more faces down at Colchester in a couple of weeks.

“Hopefully they thoroughly enjoyed today even though the result fell on the wrong side of us. If they want to come down and add to that really good support and cheer the girls to the end of the season, that would be great.”

On focusing on football amid external noise, Wright added: “I’m a football coach and the girls are football players so we concentrate on what our role is and what we’re supposed to do. It’s just been a normal week for us.”

Photo: TownTV