Portsmouth Women suffer equal fate to men’s team after 6-1 drubbing by WSL side West Ham
Portsmouth Women suffered the same discouraging fate as the men’s team on Wednesday night, going down 6-1 to West Ham United.
The clash with the WSL opponents in Dagenham was the Blues’ League Cup Group C opener, and despite an equaliser from Megan Hornby’s penalty, it was a long night where the gulf in quality showed.
The Hammers are without a win from their opening two league games, while Pompey remain bottom of the Championship still in search of their first point in a baptism of fire after promotion.
Portsmouth Women hit for six in tough start
The opening month of the campaign was met with a lot of excitement, but also a danger that a start like this would happen.
West Ham are one of the peripheral WSL clubs – they are certainly not Manchester City, Arsenal or Chelsea, but they possess a squad which would overcome a Championship side nine times out of 10.
And this isn’t just any Championship outfit at the moment, it is a Pompey team who 18 months ago were an amateur operation, and spent just a sole and successful season as a semi-pro side before finding themselves in the second tier.
The difference between the Championship and National League has shown itself plenty in the first few games, with performances from Jay Sadler’s side ranging between promising and downright naive and disappointing.
A difficult trip to London City Lionesses now precedes the first South Coast derby of the season against Southampton; Saints then meet Pompey again in the next group fixture of the League Cup, and a similar thrashing will not be accepted by the growing number of supporters.
In other Portsmouth news, a call to change the goalkeeper after the men’s team were also hammered 6-1 by Stoke City.
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