Whether or not the statistics back up his claim or not is immaterial. Teams of all ages and genders concede back-to-back goals every single week in football. To analyse the game through the lens of gender is mental and so regressive. Have men’s teams ever been analysed specifically by their gender? Do you ever hear managers saying “they’re men so they’re more likely to get violent, it’s just their nature” after getting a couple of players sent off? There’s probably a mountain of research to confirm men are more violent, but it wouldn’t make a statement like that acceptable. Shiels would have been well within his rights to say his team didn’t compose themselves or concentrate enough after conceding, and that’s something his team need to work on, but to pin his 11 players’ reactions on the behaviours of an entire gender is horrifically sexist and tone deaf.