What we were watching: 📈
BIRMINGHAM CITY 0-5 BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION (FAWSL, 12th Sept, 2pm KO, Birmingham)
Who was watching: @lawson_sv
Somewhat punch drunk from watching eight hours of Japanese football, the Brum-Brighton game kicked off with a great sense of relief… for me, knowing I would finally be free to sleep afterwards and maybe my eyes wouldn’t start bleeding as I sat, slack-jawed, slack-brained, staring at an aging laptop.Â
Coming into the match with seven wins from their last ten league outings, Brighton got proceedings underway in no time at St. Andrew’s when Tori Williams volleyed Emily Ramsey’s parried corner home. Needing less than two minutes to flex in the Midlands, the Seagulls relaxed in the game; the visitors on top but not particularly straining or stretching to further their advantage.Â
A neat break up the right by Sarah Ewens brought about a sterling opportunity for the Blues to equalise when they were awarded an indirect free kick for Danique Kerkdijk’s back pass. However, the ball was just too close to the Brighton goal and the defending players and Aileen Whelan instantly chased the ball down to clear as soon as it began to roll. 
It was about this time that the commentator on the FA Player began to call Cecilie Sandvej, Sand-vege, like some kind of unwashed Danish leek.
At the start of first half stoppage-time, contact that didn’t seem all that much in the Birmingham box had Lucy May pointing to the spot with little hesitation and once again, Inessa Kaagman fired the penalty home. That’s *gets out abacus* six of Kaagman’s ten league goals since moving to the south coast, scored from 12-yards. Boom, maths! Stay in school, kids.Â
The proverbial molehill had proverbially snowballed into the proverbial mountain for the Blues who would have felt hard done by to be two goals down at the non-proverbial break, as they had shown a few good flashes going forward, proverbially and otherwise. But the match was all but put to bed by Dan Carter who opened her account for the Seagulls with a saucy little finish from the left side of the box when she wrapped the ball in at the near post. Emma Koivisto’s header just before the hour, the blanket on the match that had arrived at Sleepytown in the heart of Bedfordshire in this rapidly deteriorating metaphor.
By the time Kayleigh Green chipped Ramsey from range, the Seagulls were well and truly in dreamland, and the sense that Birmingham’s nightmare had only just begun couldn’t be shook. The worry for the Blues not just where their goals would come from but how to find more resilience in their own half to stem the flow from their opposition, not just today but moving forward through the season. It’s not all doom and gloom though for the Blues and they know they have WSL goalscorers in Little and Large Quinn, just as they know most of the team is still getting used to each other.Â
The job for Brighton and Hope Powell (Brighton and Hope Albion…?) is not getting ahead of themselves but rather building on what they did last season and leading with their best foot.Â
You have been reading #OFFOURBOX from She Kicks – the magazine for women’s football – & friends.Â
We take our football seriously but not ourselves. Still, it's worth noting that we may jest but we never intend to offend and the opinions expressed above are the views of the writer (probably though not necessarily) and not She Kicks Ltd.
