Manchester City had a comfortable three-goal lead until injury time when Geum-min Lee scored Brighton and Hove's consolation goal seconds before the final whistle.
The home side's goals came from Chloe Kelly’s corner kick which was fumbled into the back of the visitor's net 11 minutes into the game, swiftly followed by Julie Blakstad's diving header. Laura Coombs extended the lead to 3-0 with a thunderous strike on the edge of the area to seal the win 26 minutes into open play.
But there was a heavy expectation for more, as Coombs said: “Gareth [Taylor] wasn’t actually that happy at half time, he came in and said that we need to be scoring more goals, that we were giving the ball away too cheaply at times.
“He’s quite critical but it's a good thing for us, to keep our feet on the ground. He wanted us to come out and score more goals unfortunately we didn’t do that part, but that was the aim. He’s not really satisfied.”
After the game, manager Gareth Taylor said: “It’s just a concentration thing. It’s about total concentration for the full game and when we don't do that or we give away a clean sheet in the last minute or over time. It's very frustrating and I made the players aware I was really frustrated.
“I think [we’ve] just got to make sure that we're really on top of all of those small parts. Brighton has scored a lot of goals recently and I think [they] all come from crosses and set plays, and they don't really tend to score from open play.
“So it's a disappointing one for us at the end of the game.”
After the break Brighton held onto a clean sheet for the remaining 45 minutes despite being peppered with shots, the visitors created several opportunities in possession to etch the home side, Katie Robinson working hard on the right flank to make her mark.
Taylor said: “The second half was a bit too loose from us in possession which made the game a little bit too open for Brighton and [I’m] just disappointed that we've not added more goals to our performance.”
City finished the weekend fourth in the WSL with three points and a six-goal difference behind third-place Arsenal. Top of the table Chelsea extended their lead with an 8-0 win over Leicester, and Manchester United slotted five past Aston Villa to increase the goal difference to leapfrog the Gunners on Saturday into second.
City’s next chance to impact the league table comes on December 11 in their derby clash with United at the Etihad, however, they travel to Liverpool on Wednesday December 7 for the next round of the Continental Cup.
