Reading manager Kelly Chambers has given her thoughts on her side's defeat to Chelsea at the weekend in the FAWSL.
A match where her side were in the lead after the 14th minute when good link up play in the Blues box between Brooke Chaplen and Fara Wiliams resulted in the latter emphatically scoring past Ann-Katrin Berger in the Chelsea goal.
However the main turning point came a few minutes later where a miscommunication between Royals defender Jo Potter and goalkeeper Grace Moloney resulted in the latter being sent off for wiping out Chelsea debutant Sam Kerr.
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“It was frustrating,” said Chambers, “We were on top for that first twenty minutes, with eleven players on the pitch. We went 1-0 up and we‘re thinking, ok, we’re on top and we’re getting more comfortable in the game”.
The red card shown to Moloney by referee Stacey Pearson had a huge impact on the game, a fixture that Reading had played 3 weeks previously, walking away from Kingsmeadow with a 1-1 draw after full-time and a 4-2 victory on penalties in the Continental Cup.
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Unsurprisingly the Reading boss wasn't afraid to label the red card incident as to where the game was lost at the weekend.
She said: “The red card was a bit of a killer for us
“We were on top, on the front foot and causing them problems, but to go a player down, it’s always going to be difficult, but we were unlucky that we didn’t go into half time at 1-0, if that had have happened it could have been a different game.
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"But to have 10 players against Chelsea, it was going to be a difficult game for us.
"The decision was made by the referee and it was the right decision, but it was always going to make the game hard for us”.
Rachael Laws was the goalkeeper who came on to replace Chaplen after the Moloney red card and Chambers was full of praise for the performance of the substitute in such a high pressure atmosphere.
The Reading manager said: “Fair play to Lawsy, I thought she was excellent, and she stepped up to the mark and she made some unbelievable saves in the second-half. Now, we have to move on and concentrate on the next game in hand”.
