Reading FC Women’s manager Kelly Chambers has called on her side to be more ruthless after a heavy defeat to Manchester City.

A 4-0 defeat to the Citizens in the final day of the WSL season rounded off a miserable 11 match winless run as the Royals finished the campaign in eighth place, five behind Sunday’s opponents.

Despite their lowest league finish since winning promotion to the top-flight in 2016, the club achieved some momentous records, such as the longest winning run and longest unbeaten run.

Speaking to the media after the defeat, Chambers felt it was a good performance overall, but her team were punished.

 

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She said: “If I look back at the scoreline, I don’t think it was a 4-0 game and don’t think Man City carved us open and pulled us apart. Defensively, we were strong and the performance as a team was very good. But unfortunately, four individual errors have cost us four goals today and they are the margins when you play against teams like Man City if you make those errors and teams will punish you.   

“I don’t think they did break us down today and we were defensively strong. But in four moments, they managed to punish us. For us, when we had the goalscoring opportunity, we need to be more ruthless on those areas and we don’t get many of them.” 

Despite poor form in the latter stages of the season it has still been a year of punching above their weight for Chambers and her side- and the boss can't wait for next term.

Speaking to the club website, she concluded: “For me it's been a season of two halves. Starting with a squad that had eight to 10 changes in one transfer window. So, what I'm excited about next season is there's a big foundation of this squad that stay for next season. And we've laid that foundation now and it's for us, it's kind of what's next.

“We need to look towards next season and go right, this is us, how do we progress moving forward? That's what excites me. We haven't got big turnovers and we've got a solid squad already, and if we can add a few to that we could be a little bit stronger."