It was a really tough afternoon for Ipswich Town Women at the City Ground as they were outplayed by Nottingham Forest to put an end to David Wright’s unbeaten league start as interim manager, losing 2-0.
Team news
Teenager Nelly Las started her first professional game and made her first appearance in a Town shirt.
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Sophie Peskett was recalled to the starting XI with last week’s goalscorer Lucy Ashworth-Clifford on the bench.
Town XI: Negri, Las, Wearing, Peake, Roe, Cavanagh (Thomas,75), Meena (Mitchell,60), Baker (Ashworth-Clifford,60), Graham (C), Peskett, Dean (Ademiliuyi,60)
Forest XI: Batty, Stapleton, Brougham (C), Mustaki, Hed, Rowe (Rodgers,89), Omewa (Almqvist,63), Brown, Kiernan (Rose,89), Murphy, Boye-Hlorkah (Claypole,83)
Going behind
Forest were the better side for the opening 30 minutes, playing the ball around well and threatening Natalia Negri’s goal.
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They made that pressure pay when in the 28th minute, a ball was delivered in from Cerys Brown from the right which looked as though it should have been easily cleared by Town.
Megan Wearing went to clear the ball but mistimed her clearance, which allowed Joy Omewa to simply put the ball into the back of the net.
It was a really poor first-half performance from Town, who couldn’t get into the game at all.
From bad to worse
Town would have hoped for an improvement on their first-half display, but that was not to be as another defensive mistake gave Forest their second of the game just two minutes after the restart.
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Town were playing the ball round at the back but Wearing got caught on it and was too weak, allowing Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah the chance to take the ball and finish easily past Negri.
Completely outclassed
For the first time since Wright took over, Town looked well-off the pace, with a mixture of poor defending and good pressure by Forest a recipe for disaster.
Thanks to results elsewhere, Town remain just off the bottom of the table on goal difference.
Up next for Town is a big clash at Portman Road against Southampton on Saturday, March 28th.