by Andrew Crawshaw
The five matches in the WSL this weekend were:-
Friday evening – Manchester City v Reading (1 – 1)
The weekend started off with a game between Manchester City (second in the league last season) against Reading (beaten by Arsenal 6 – 0 the previous week). From the start there were chances at both ends. Georgina Stanway and Nikita Parris had early shots for City and then Fara Williams shot over from a free kick and Remi Allen for Reading had a shot saved in a frantic first 10 minutes. After that the game settled down a bit. Man City opened the scoring in the 33rd minute thanks to a shot by Stanway from outside the box to the top right corner of the goal. Half time saw the score remain 1 – 0 to City.
Reading made a change at half time with Jade Moore making her return from long term injury. It proved an excellent change as 5 minutes into the half she was unmarked and headed home a corner from Fara Williams. Maloney was in outstanding form in th eReading goal and denied City on a number of occasions with smart saves.
| Man City | Reading | |
| Possession | 60 | 40 |
| Shots | 22 | 23 |
| Shots on Target | 8 | 5 |
| Fouls | 10 | 9 |
| Yellow Cards | 1 | 2 |
David Mcnamara was the referee. Attendance was 1,015
Chelsea v Liverpool (1 – 0)
This was the featured match on BT Sport with a 12:30 kickoff. Liverpool had appointed Vicky Jepson as their new manager during the week following the departure on Neil Redfern at the start of the season. Chelsea had the best of the chances throughout but it was a spectacular overhead kick from Magda Eriksson that was to be the only goal of the match. Chelsea should have scored more but for wasteful finishing.
| Chelsea | Liverpool | |
| Possession | 58 | 42 |
| Shots | 18 | 4 |
| Shots on Target | 5 | 2 |
| Fouls | 6 | 8 |
| Yellow Cards | 2 | 1 |
Stacey Pearson was the referee and attendance was 1,528
Everton v West Ham (1 – 2)
Claudia Walker struck early from a Siri Worm cross to give Everton the lead, unfortunately for them that was about as good as it was to get. Jane Ross headed the Hammers level at the second attempt after her first came back off the crossbar. They then took the lead just before half time thanks to a shot from Alisha Lehmann.
In the second half both sides came close, Kirstie Levell in the West Ham goal saved a penalty from Jane Ross, Visalli for West Ham hit the crossbar from a long range effort and Esme de Graaf sliced the rebound against the post from no more than 5 yards.
| Everton | West Ham | |
| Possession | 54 | 46 |
| Shots | 12 | 15 |
| Shots on Target | 4 | 6 |
| Fouls | 10 | 13 |
| Yellow Cards | 0 | 2 |
Brighton v Yeovil (2 – 1)
Brighton got their first win of the season against bottom club Yeovil but once again Yeovil made a better showing and had chances.
Brighton got off to a good start thanks to a strike from Jodie Brett in the13th minute and doubled their advantage through Victoria Williams in the 32nd minute holding on to that lead at halftime.
Yeovil were somewhat better in the second half and made things far more difficult for Brighton. They got a goal back in the 69th minute when Ellie Mason followed in her penalty attempt and scored from the rebound. Both teams had opportunities to score after that but neither were able to make them count.
| Brighton | Yeovil | |
| Possession | 58 | 42 |
| Shots | 21 | 8 |
| Shots on Target | 9 | 3 |
| Fouls | 19 | 15 |
| Yellow Cards | 1 | 3 |
The Referee was Jacob Miles and attendance was 562
The last game of the weekend was Bristol v Arsenal (0 – 4)
This match was live on the WSL Facebook page and I managed to watch the second half.
We continued our excellent start to the season with another emphatic win against Bristol. Bristol defended deep and in numbers making it difficult for us to thread the final ball through at times. We went ahead through Jordan Nobbs in the 13th minute and she then turned provider for Miedema to get her 10th league goal of the season with a good low shot across Baggley to the bottom corner of the goal.
Baggley was without doubt Bristol’s player of the game as she made a string of good saves throughout the match denying Miedema for virtually the whole of the second half until she was undone in the 88th minute when Miedema placed a looping header into the top corner. Within 90 seconds we were 4 ahead as Danielle van de Donk smashed home from close range. There was doubt around the ground in the 66th minute when Arsenal were sure that they had forced the ball over the line during a goalmouth scramble but the officials ruled that the keeper had kept the ball in play.
| Bristol | Arsenal | |
| Possession | 30 | 70 |
| Shots | 3 | 26 |
| Shots on Target | 0 | 15 |
| Fouls | 5 | 5 |
| Yellow Cards | 0 | 0 |
Attendance was 658 and the Arsenal supporters made far more noise, they could clearly be heard at all times during the broadcast.
Here is the current table:-
| Team | P | W | D | L | +/- | Pts | |
| 1 | Arsenal | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 18 |
| 2 | Man City | 7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 17 | 15 |
| 3 | Birmingham | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 7 | 2 | 4 | 1 | -2 | 10 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | -4 | 9 |
| 6 | Reading | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | -2 | 8 |
| 7 | Bristol | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | -3 | 8 |
| 8 | West Ham | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | -6 | 7 |
| 9 | Brighton | 7 | 1 | 1 | 5 | -10 | 4 |
| 10 | Everton | 5 | 0 | 2 | 3 | -6 | 2 |
| 11 | Yeovil | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | -15 | 0 |
Three points clear of Man City in second place and with a game in hand – looking good for now.
Here are the figures for the top goalscorers this season in the WSL (from BBC Sport) Arsenal players in BOLD and Red text
| Player | Goals | Assists | Mins/goal | Shots | on target | % on target |
| Vivianne Miedema | 11 | 5 | 49 | 29 | 24 | 83 |
| Nikita Parris | 7 | 4 | 87 | 23 | 15 | 65 |
| Georgina Stanway | 7 | 2 | 72 | 27 | 13 | 48 |
| Jordan Nobbs | 6 | 2 | 89 | 22 | 12 | 55 |
| Danielle van de Donk | 5 | 2 | 99 | 9 | 9 | 100 |
| Kim Little | 4 | 4 | 82 | 7 | 5 | 71 |
| Caroline Wier | 3 | 4 | 180 | 11 | 6 | 55 |
| Lucy Graham | 3 | 0 | 180 | 9 | 5 | 56 |
Miedema’s figures are simply astonishing – 11 goals and 5 assists in 6 games, shot accuracy of 83% and a goal scored every 49 minutes she is on the pitch. Just to compare here are the top five in the PL
| Player | Goals | Assists | Mins/goal | Shots | on target | % on target |
| Eden Hazard | 7 | 3 | 95 | 14 | 11 | 79 |
| PE Aubameyang | 7 | 1 | 99 | 15 | 10 | 67 |
| Sergio Agüero | 6 | 2 | 108 | 29 | 14 | 48 |
| Glenn Murray | 6 | 0 | 125 | 13 | 7 | 54 |
| Sadio Mané | 6 | 0 | 132 | 20 | 13 | 65 |
COYG
- Funny ol game, funny ol pitch, and why don’t we have a say in how Wembley is used?
- Context is nothing; how football reports are biased towards individual events
- Live match report Crystal Palace – Arsenal : 2-2
Thanks Andrew.
Over the 5 games in the WSL, there were 152 shots. That compares very favorably with the men having 194 shots from 10 games.
Really? Wait till the defence can shut out the Pool attack and the gunners win will I believe it.
If you have a strong attack but a weak defence you will get no where.
King Keegan could have won the epl in 1996 had he bought a defender. Instead he chose to buy an attacker saying you score one I will score 2.
That is history and it has been proven repeatedly a strong defence can deliver victories and trophies.
@wolf
Are you lost?
So I know ots not on topic for our women’s team, who I am very happy with as usual. Always a bright spot for Arsenal. I just wanted to get onto the latest page. So…..
Here I am.
I couldn T help but observe the relevance here. Gary Neville appears to he trying to turn a corner, trying I might add. I hope I got to him, really I Twitter sodomized him, metaphorically of course. Nothing like placing someone with facts and ones that get a little personal.
Anyways; I couldn T believe it, Jamie that man who spits at little girls. He’s back, but what’s more is, he’s still a bit special. Gary why do you keep saying £600m?
You’ll have to read it. But whatbstrikes me is that having a net spend of £29m over 4 years and kind of making the top four makes you good enough for Real, so 22 years and always making top four makes you what? You must be at least a diety!
Paying for a stadium and investing in the future??? No seriously I must have gotten to him.
And what’s that he thinks that no other owner has eclipsed the work of Levy!? By jove he’s talking sense, Own weight was blooming marvellous and it will tell over the next two or three years and the Cirt owner prior to the Crown Princes of Persia.
But yeah this little caveat of an article does speak volumes of you grasp the context.
This helicopter business it’s a bit like the timing of a journalist assassination in an embassy. Fishy. You need a great reason to murder someone in that fashion when selling 5% of your oil stock for $1.5tn £1.35tn and Luxemburg gets touched and this guy falls from the sky someone tampered whilst the chopper was at the stadium. And Malaysians wanting assistance from the OH LOL; yes well Malaysia and betting……
It was a shambles to drop points against Palace. With the easily identifiable problem man ravaging us.
Not Mustarfis game, Sokratis all year. Nothing important is even the other side of thos game. Why dontbyoy go slightly defensive to start and play three holding midfielders or 2 ball winning and Aaron, meaning total fluidity?
But at the very least why wasn’t Mohammed or Matteo on the bench. We are 2-1 up and he takes off Mr pass into transition for the counter and brings on a player he used yp 2 days ago; is he as special as Carragjer?
Losses 2, Chelsea unlucky? CITY SET UP COMPLETELY WRONG, Arsene made that se mistake before but if you observed those then I would expect a little tweak this time around. He set up wrong against Leicester and we nearly paid and then he got half the starting 11 wrong and half the bench meaning he had nothing to replace the left back with and nothing to see put the game with, when either No or Mar preferably both would have taken pride in doing that.
He seems yo be having problems with players who would be extremely loyal to his forebear!
But is going with Mustarfi and Xhaka so often. And wanted Cech in before that. I am bemused.
Wolfgang, the defense for the women’s team is doing fine. They have only let in 3 goals (+28 goal difference).
Helps of you.add the link to the article you are referencing though…
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11675/11539674/gary-neville-and-jamie-carragher-in-heated-tottenham-debate
@ I don’t have a clue u know!
I haven’t followed the link yet, but I do so with much trepidation.
Here goes.
Entertaining if incoherent. Thanks
I spit, therefore I am.
What would have been interesting, would be a pole of viewers .Spitter versus Griper. Who would have won. Bit like brexit I imagine…. no one.
With who u know who no nuttin & what on erth is being scribbled.
Just to make some sense Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 2-0 but had 2-0 gifted to Palace by Atkinson which resulted in a 2-2 draw.
Never has a man of 6′ plus been poleaxed by a touch to the ankle like the 1st penalty was decided on.