Arsenal welcomed an injury-struck Manchester City side to Meadow Park, where the home side looked to re-affirm their WSL title challenge with a confident 5-0 win. City were without their experienced captain Steph Houghton, which deemed to be vital with many defensive errors leading to goals.
Vivienne Miedema opened the scoring within 10 minutes after a defensive error from the City backline before captain Kim Little doubled the home side’s lead by outmuscling the defence and striking the ball into the top corner.
The third came from Katie McCabe where she struck the ball hard into the top corner before Alex Greenwood brought Little down in the box where she slotted away the penalty for her second goal of the game.
Leah Williamson closed the five-star performance with a clean goal where she out-jumped the City defence to convert the fifth goal.
Speaking to the BBC post-match, Arsenal Manager Jonas Eidevall saw that in previous games “City have a high defensive line and they get pretty exposed” and they were able to take their “opportunities to exploit that”.
Head coach Eidevall was able to implement an aggressive style of play as he claims, “we have a lot of players with pace and good quality to play the ball in”.
Manchester City coach Gareth Taylor defended his style of play, explaining: “we have our principles at play which we will be loyal to… mistakes are mistakes, that has nothing to do with the way we look to play out from the back”.
The head coach vowed to “keep fighting” despite the lack of form and claims “it’s a tough one to take”.
Manchester City now sit in 8th place with only one win in the opening three fixtures and sit 6 points off league leaders, Arsenal. City are set to face 7th place West Ham in their next fixture, who have picked up form after their 4-0 win against Leicester City.
WSL leaders, Arsenal, face a tough trip to Villa Park where they will take on an inform Aston Villa team, who look to continue their high-flying start to the season.
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