Male footballers are more emotional, we show after Kenny Shiels claims

He caused outrage last week when he said his women’s football team let in a quick succession of goals because they are ‘more emotional’ than their male peers.

The comments by Northern Ireland’s women’s football team manager Kenny Shiels were widely condemned – but was he factually correct?

His claims prompted The Mail on Sunday to compare the performances of men’s to women’s teams – and no one who watched Paul Gascoigne blub during the Italia 90 World Cup will be surprised by the result.

Far from being more stoic, men succumb to heavy defeat more rapidly than elite female players.

When on the receiving end of a comprehensive defeat, they actually let in their third, fourth and fifth goals in a shorter amount of time.

After studying all 111 Women’s Super League (WSL) matches so far this season and the opening 111 games of the men’s Premier League campaign, the MoS can reveal that WSL teams on average let in their third goal 20 minutes after their second.

When they kept conceding goals, the fourth was scored 14 minutes later and their fifth after another 17 minutes.

By contrast, men in the Premier League conceded their third goal 17 minutes after their second, their fourth 12 minutes later and their fifth 15 minutes on.

One example of a Premier League side capitulating came with Southampton’s recent 6-0 rout by Chelsea, who scored their first four goals in just 23 minutes.

Mr Shiels made his remarks after the Northern Ireland women’s team was hammered 5-0 by England last week. His team was only 1-0 down at half-time but then conceded four goals in 27 minutes.

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Afterwards Mr Shiels said: ‘I thought they were struggling a wee bit at times to open us up until the