A frustrated Robert de Pauw felt the “wrong decision” to send off his Aston Villa side’s left-back Paula Tomás changed their Women’s Super League game against Brighton.
With the score at 2-2 after Rachel Daly had scored twice for Villa, either side of close-range finishes from Nikita Parris and Pauline Bremer for the home side, Brighton were awarded a late penalty. Tomás was adjudged to have blocked Kiko Seike’s run in the area and Villa reacted with shock and dismay when the Spain left-back was shown a red card.
“The explanation from the referee was ‘an elbow and excessive force’,” De Pauw, the Villa coach, said. “The ball was flying over, so Kiko Seike was never [going to reach it]. It was clearly not excessive force, Paula Tomás was in her rights to step in the way. That moment changed the game.
“It’s frustrating when it’s about these moments and I don’t think the referee does it on purpose. He has good intentions, but it was the wrong decision.”
After Villa’s protests, Fran Kirby confidently stepped up to slot in low, giving Brighton six points from a possible nine this season. Brighton then had Poppy Pattinson sent off for a second yellow card in stoppage time, before the substitute Michelle Agyemang made it 4-2 with a clinical low finish into the bottom corner.
The result leaves De Pauw without a league victory from his first three WSL matches as Villa’s head coach but he was encouraged by his side’s creative play and attractive attacking football. The former Bayer Leverkusen manager said: “Until the red card, I really enjoyed the game. It’s the level I came to England for – two teams that want to play good football, who want to play attacking football.
“Our style of play is positive, but you don’t get points for playing a good way, you get points for winning games or at least drawing in them. We had momentum, but somebody else decided for us the game, but he didn’t do it intentionally.”
For Brighton, whose supporters appeared delighted by their more adventurous and stylish play compared with last to previous season, the victory continued their strong start to the campaign under their new head coach, Dario Vidosic.
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The former Melbourne City FC manager said: “I’m really, really proud that, after two home games, we’ve scored eight goals. So that’s really, really positive. They’re probably over-achieving, from what I expected.”
Brighton had previously lost all four of their home league fixtures against Villa in the WSL, but this season, after some eye-catching summer recruitment of big names, their goal-scoring threat has grown. Kirby’s goal was her third in all competitions since her summer signing from Chelsea, while Parris and Agyemang – deadline-day arrivals – grabbed their first goals for the club. On that duo, Vidosic said: “Their quality is undeniable and I expect them to just get better and better, the more they grow that connection with the players around them as well.”
