Football Sports

WSL Game Week 11: The Winners and Losers as Manchester City Thump Brighton

The weekend saw six Women’s Super League teams in action with Reading beating Leicester City 1-0, Birmingham City defeating Arsenal 2-0 and Manchester City thumping Brighton & Hove Albion 6-0.

With the WSL season virtually half way done, the table is starting to shape up. I will be looking at these three games and what the results mean to the teams.

Arsenal vs Birmingham City

Arsenal suffered their first defeat of the season at the hands of Birmingham City on Sunday. This shock result does not affect Arsenal’s position at the top of the table but will no doubt come as a shock to Jonas Eidevall.

The Arsenal boss was quick to defend his players after this disappointing result, “What we didn’t do today that we have done well so far this season is to anticipate moments and to work together as a team. I have to take 100% responsibility.”

Birmingham took the lead after only three minutes when Libby Smith fired the blues ahead. Veatriki Sarri doubled her side’s lead when she netted in the 43rd minute. From there on in Birmingham were solely focused on defence and were solid enough to prevent being breached by the league leaders.

Whilst Arsenal’s first loss, this was Birmingham’s first win of the season and was enough to lift them off the foot of the table and above fellow strugglers Leicester city. Blues boss Darren Carter was full of praise regarding his team’s performance. “They deserve this, they’ve put in so much hard work. That performance epitomises what they are all about as a group.”

Manchester City vs Brighton & Hove Albion

Manchester City hammered Brighton & Hove Albion by six goals to nil. The result means City have now moved above Brighton and into sixth place.

The goals were coming thick and fast for City in the second half with Lauren Hemp, Georgia Stanway, Laura Coombs, Hayley Raso and Vicky Losada all netting within 25 minutes of each other, with City’s first being an own goal courtesy of Victoria Williams.

With the deadlock yet to be broken at half time, Gareth Taylor’s message was to bring Lauren Hemp into the game. “One of the messages at half-time was get it to Lauren, she was really at it today and brings so much energy to the team.”

Hope Powell will no doubt be disappointed with her team’s second half performance after manging to keep the tie goalless in the first half, “I thought we did really well in the first half, but then we lost our way and against a decent team it’s difficult to claw it back.”

Reading vs Leicester City

Reading continued their unbeaten run with a 1-0 victory over the struggling Leicester City. Reading are now without a defeat in their previous six games and have climbed to sixth in the table after loosing their opening four games of the campaign.

The only goal of time tie came in the 11th minute when Natasha Dowie fired her side in front. Despite dominating the ball, Leicester were unable to breach reading and make amends for their early defensive mistake.

Reading boss Kelly Chambers was ready to admit her side were not at their best, “For us we know we didn’t play great today, we’ve all admitted that, but we got the three points and that is what its all about.”

Leicester threw everything they had at Reading in the second half and manager Lydia Bedford praised her side for their efforts. “I can’t fault the effort and the energy that they put into that second half. There’s positives all around the pitch, from front to back.”

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