‘We were not at our levels’ – Sørensen reacts to Everton’s defeat to Spurs | OneFootball

Everton manager Brian Sørensen said that his side were not at their usual levels after they fell to a 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon.

Olga Ahtinen and Cathinka Tandberg got the goals as Everton were defeated in the first competitive game at their permanent home of Goodison Park.

When speaking in the post-match press conference, Everton boss Sørensen admitted that his side had been a little off-colour.

“It’s about matching the other team’s energy, which we were not doing,” Sørensen said. “We had the capacity to change it around and I think the half-time talk was good. We looked at the problems we needed to fix, but then a very early goal disrupted our plans and maybe [hit] the belief to come back.

“I thought we moved the ball way too slow today and there were too many touches. They took advantage of that; we just simply didn’t pass and move quickly enough which we are usually good at.

“I don’t know if there’s a definitive answer to what went wrong from the performance side, but I could see individually that we were not at our levels and also collectively, we were a bit off.”

Reflecting on the first competitive game at Goodison Park, Sørensen spoke positively about the work that has been done behind-the-scenes to make the venue feel like home.

He said “The club have done a magnificent job. It looks like our home and it looks good. I’m happy for women’s football in this part of England that we have a platform like this. It was also nice to see all of the fans here.

“Of course, we want to do better [on the pitch], but I don’t know if it was the occasion. I told the girls before [the game] to make sure that we don’t think about the emotions in it too much, focus more on the performance to make sure they were ready but we weren’t [at our best].”

With nine new signings made in the summer, Everton are much-changed this season and Sørensen said that it may take time for the players to click and connect with each other.

He said “It’s about who’s ready to start the game and play the full 90 [minutes]; we’ve still got players that are not 100-percent there yet, so we’re working on that. It’s not a team that’s clicking and connecting, but I didn’t expect it too [straight-away].

“We need to be better. We can’t play like we did today with our touches; two or three when we could’ve taken one and passed the ball. We were trying to get into a better rhythm in the second half, but it was hard being 2-0 down.”

Everton are next in action on Friday evening when they play host to London City Lionesses at Goodison Park.