Elite male sides succumb to thrashings more often than female sides

An international football manager sparked controversy last week with his claim that female players are prone to capitulating because they are more emotional than men. Kenny Shiels, boss of the Northern Ireland women’s team, insisted the statistics backed him up too after his side had been hammered 5-0 by England. 

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the reverse is true and that Premier League footballers actually succumb to a thrashing more rapidly than their female counterparts. 

A comparison of the Premier League and the top flight of women’s football this season found men concede their third, fourth and fifth goals more quickly than the women. 

The 111 games in the Women’s Super League show that teams on average concede their third goal 20 minutes after their second. They let in their fourth 14 minutes later and their fifth another 17 minutes on. Across the first 111 games of the Premier League this season, the men conceded their third goal 17 minutes after their second, their fourth 12 minutes later and their fifth 15 minutes on. 

A stark example of a Premier League side collapsing came in Southampton’s recent 6-0 rout by Chelsea in which the former conceded four goals in 23 minutes. 

Our study showed women performed ‘worse’ only when conceding their second goal, with an average 23 minutes between it and the first. The Premier League figure is nearly 30 minutes. 

Shiels, 65, apologised after his claim that women were more prone to capitulating sparked huge debate. 

He had said it was a problem ‘through the whole spectrum of the women’s game, because girls and women are more emotional than men, so they take a goal going in not very well’. 

He added: ‘If you go through the stats you’ll have noticed, when a team