Wimbledon wobble leaves Horsham Ladies with work still to do

Coach Paul Johnson admitted his Horsham Ladies didn’t quite reach the heights of recent performances in Saturday’s defeat to Wimbledon.

Still at 2-1 down the hosts made a late rally and had chances to take something from the game, before two more Wimbledon goals on the counter added a gloss to their final result.

“Losing 4-1 was a bit unfair on us, but having said that it definitely wasn’t one of our best performances of the season,” Johnson said.

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“Losing 2-1 with ten minutes to go we pushed to go and get something out of the game and were got caught twice.

“It’s disappointing because this was a game we’d looked to get something out of, and we paid for a couple of uncharacteristic mistakes after we’d made a great start.”

That great start saw Horsham take the lead after just two minutes.

A slick team move saw the hosts win a short corner, and from it Suzy Clapp’s strike towards the back post deflected off and Wimbledon player and in.

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The visitors were level five minutes later when Horsham were caught out by a quickly played free hit into the D which was deflected past Hannah Simpson.

It was “sloppy” according to Johnson, as was conceding the short corner which Wimbledon scored their second soon after. Still there was nothing Johnson’s side could do when the set piece was slipped left and a thunderous strike gave goalkeeper Simpson no chance.

In a fairly even end to the first half Charlotte White and Clapp both came close to restoring parity.

And switching from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 at half-time seemed to help as Horsham dominated the opening of the second half. But their efforts were hampered by yellow cards for Gill Adams and Clapp, and a green card for Jess Dean.

Despite playing with ten for much of the half the hosts pushed for a second, which both Dean and Lauren Keefe nearly found. But two Wimbledon goals on the break saw them leave with the points.

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