AFC Women manager Scott Booth was frustrated with individual errors and aspects of his sides opening day performance at Meadowbank, but believes there is still positives to take out of their opening day dual with the Champions.

“I was disappointed with a lot of aspects of the game.  I spoke to the players after the game about not being surprised how hard you’re going to have to work this season to stay in games and to gain points. Every single game is going to be a bit like that. We can’t afford to lose one V one battles so easily.

“We can’t afford to have individual errors like we had in the first half for the goals. They’re going to be really difficult to watch back. The things that we worked on in training, it’s a must that we understand them and why we’re doing them in training so that we could put them into practice in game. And we didn’t do that today very well.

“Hence why I changed the shape in the second half. But I think I did say to the players, it’s their first game. It was always going to be a tough game. We’re playing against Hibs, playing against the champions away from home on the first day, and we have a lot of new faces in the squad. So, yeah, it’s always going to be tough. I think you also have to take into account that we were up against a really, really good side today.

“We score, and then we let them score straight after. There was a degree of naivety today. Even the quick starts when they had free kicks and things, they were just putting the ball down and getting going. And we talked about this all week. This is what this team does, and we just weren’t switched on to it at all.

“We have some good things to take out of it in the second half in particular. We lost that third goal when I felt like we’d got back into the game. We calmed ourselves down a bit, we were better in possession – and we lose a really silly goal again.

“We’ve managed to give our new players a taste for it. We will have, hopefully a couple of bodies back to help us strengthen again. I think the biggest thing for me is that it’s so clear the things that you can’t do in this league this season if you want to compete.

“We’ll show the players exactly what we mean about that throughout the week so that when they arrive at Glasgow City, we don’t lose our one V one battles, that we aren’t surprised by them, we aren’t surprised by how hard the game is going to be.

“Holly Daniel rolled her ankle during the week, so we need to wait and see how she is. Alix is back running again, so she’s not too far away.”