Lee Johnson was delighted with his Fleetwood players after they got their first win of the League One campaign, beating Leyton Orient 1-0.
The Cod Army had to withstand early pressure before Jack Marriott hit the game’s only goal 10 minutes into the second half.
And manager Johnson was happy that his team got to show their quality after weathering the early storm.
“First and foremost I’m delighted with the first win of the season, both for myself and, mainly, for the players and the staff,” said Johnson, who got his maiden win in charge.
“If I’m honest the first 20 minutes was really poor from us, I thought we were passive, we didn’t play with anywhere near the right enthusiasm, both to press and to make angles and space for our team-mates, we had to change our shape a little bit and we got a lot closer to Leyton Orient and from 30 minutes on we were the better side.
“We could have had a second but we stayed organised and the work we did on the training ground bore fruit and that’s nice to see.
“They had half-chances early on but we made them look like Barcelona by not applying pressure. We have to be a front-foot pressing team, that’s my style and that’s what I demand.
“Once we did that you can see the quality of individual players coming out, because there are good players in that dressing room. They are getting fitter and starting to show what they’re about.
“I’m delighted for Jack to get his first goal of the season and he’s going to be so important for us.”
O’s manager Richie Wellens was critical of his side’s failure to make their early pressure count.
Though they rallied late on in a bid to salvage a point, they returned home empty-handed, with second yellow cards shown to Fleetwood’s Carl Johnston and Orient’s Ethan Galbraith the final act of the afternoon.
“We’ve wasted three points today,” said Wellens.
“In the first half hour we were totally dominant, the atmosphere in here was really quiet, they’ve obviously been struggling and we had an opportunity to be ruthless and we should have been one or two up.
“Fair play to them, they stuck at it and turned the game around with about 10 minutes to go in the first half, and then we started the second half really poorly.
“They got the crowd involved, but I still think it’s a game we should have won. We had a couple of chances late on but with the amount of balls we’ve had in the box and with the amount of opportunities early on, the amount of situations we had in the first half we’ve got to score, and if you don’t then you run the risk of the opposition coming into it.
“Fair play to Fleetwood, they ran a little bit more, won second balls and won a few duels and that’s probably won them the game. We’ve got to take shots on, we turned too many shots down.
“We need to be more ruthless, attack quicker and make decisions quicker and if we do that we probably win the game today.”
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
Taylor pleased with City's physical test during Hammarby win
Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor was pleased with how his team stood up to the physical challenge of Hammarby in their 2-0 Champions League victory on Tuesday.
City's win extended their unbeaten start to the season, having won every game in all competitions following a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on opening day.
“Difficult game for us, physical challenge, a physical team in Hammarby. I think they outnumber us a little bit in terms of size, considering when you look at our midfield. But I thought the girls handled it really well," Taylor said after the game
“I thought we dominated the game. In the early parts we were just a little bit off in our final action. We just needed to speed up a little bit in terms of being on the end of it, and we spoke about that at half-time, and we score with Laura getting into that type of position we’d been talking about.
“[The physicality was something] we were prepared for, but dealing with it is a different thing. Having Bunny [Khadija Shaw] and Alanna [Kennedy] on the pitch, two of our more physical players, is really important, particularly for set-plays.
“At 1-0 we were defending a couple of scenarios like that, Yama [Ayaka Yamashita] making a really good save at one point. Then Aoba [Fujino] got the goal that maybe allowed us to change things up a little bit more, get some people off that we’d like to manage.
“I think the girls have dealt with it really well tonight. We expected it, we thought it would be difficult, and they rose to the challenge.”
The victory leaves City top of their Champions League group with a 100% record after three matches, three points above second-placed Barcelona.
Taylor had made changes to City's starting XI, with Lauren Hemp among the trio to drop out from the weekend and she did not feature in the squad. Ahead of their weekend game against Chelsea, who are second in the WSL, Taylor explained the reasoning behind Hemp's absence.
“We’ve just got an issue with Lauren that we just need to analyse a little bit further, that’s all," he said.
“It’s something that potentially happened in the Palace game [on 3 November]. She was able to play in the Tottenham game [last Friday] but wasn’t able to tonight, so we’ll just take a little bit longer to assess and find out more.
“Hopefully [she can play against Chelsea]. There’s an opportunity there, we’ll just have to take a moment tomorrow, have a good conversation and find out where we’re at with the medical staff.”
Al-Riyadh 0-1 Al-Nassr: Mane hands visitors bragging rights
Sadio Mane's first-half strike ensured Al-Nassr maintained their unbeaten start to the Saudi Pro League season with a 1-0 win over rivals Al-Riyadh.
He smartly finished from close range in the 41st minute, with his goal enough to seal the three points and move Al-Nassr up to third in the table.
Al-Nassr's threat grew as the first half went on, with Milan Borjan making a fine double stop to deny Ronaldo and Talisca once again before Mohamed Simakan struck the post on the rebound.
Mane would eventually break the deadlock in the 41st minute though, darting in front of his marker to meet Abdulrahman Ghareeb's low cross and rifle it into the roof of the net.
The Senegalese striker arguably should have doubled his tally before the break, but was denied by Borjan's stretching save when one-on-one with the Canadian.
Talisca should have wrapped up the points in the final three minutes, but he blazed over an empty net from close range, before having a late goal disallowed for offside.
Data Debrief: Derby delight for Al-Nassr
After drawing their last two matches, this win was a welcome result for Al-Nassr as they racked up their sixth victory of the season to close the gap at the top of the table to six points.
It is just the second time Al-Nassr have avoided defeat in their first 10 matches of a Pro League campaign, last doing so in 2013-14, when they won the league title.
They are now unbeaten in their last seven Pro League derbies (W4 D3), their longest such streak since a run of nine between 2018 and 2020.
This is the first time in eight such games that they have kept a clean sheet though, and limited their opponents to just five shots throughout.
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