WSL roundup: Arsenal thrash Liverpool thanks to Matthews’ damaging double | OneFootball

Arsenal bounced straight back from the disappointment of their midweek defeat away at Real Madrid by comprehensively beating Liverpool 4-0 in the Women’s Super League. Elsewhere, Everton ran out 3-0 winners against Crystal Palace.

Liverpool’s Jasmine Matthews scored two own goals in the game at the Emirates Stadium, as Arsenal proved too strong for Amber Whiteley’s team and her 100% winning start to life as the Merseyside club’s interim head coach came to an end.

The result saw Arsenal score four or more goals in a sixth consecutive home WSL fixture, the longest streak of that kind in the competition’s history, and they did much of the damage in a two-minute period in the first half where they found the net twice in quick succession.

Caitlin Foord tucked in the opening goal from two yards after Liverpool defended poorly at a corner, and moments later, after a quick Arsenal break, Kim Little’s attempted pass across goal bounced into the net off Matthews. As Arsenal’s confidence grew, Mariona Caldentey curled a stylish third goal into the far corner a minute before half-time.

Matthews’s second unfortunate moment came in the 69th minute when she tried to block Beth Mead’s near-post shot and inadvertently diverted the ball past goalkeeper Rachael Laws, as second-placed Arsenal closed the gap at the top of the league to five points behind the leaders Chelsea, who face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium today.

Liverpool, who had impressed in Whiteley’s three wins from three, with league victories over Crystal Palace and Manchester United sandwiched either side of an FA Cup victory away against Arsenal, never looked close to repeating their Cup heroics and did not register a single shot on target.

Frida Maanum also hit the woodwork twice for Arsenal, after linking up well with an in-form Alessia Russo, and their attentions will now turn towards trying to overturn the 2-0 deficit they face in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid.

Foord told Sky Sports: “It has been a heavy week, but we had a point to prove, especially against them [Liverpool] as well. We were looking forward to being back here and putting on a show. As a front four we want to be fluent, we want to interchange and we want to make it difficult for defenders, and we just worked really well off each other tonight, and we just want to keep that going.”

The day’s two top-flight games attracted hugely contrasting attendance figures, as 35,628 spectators created a din in north London, just hours after a crowd of merely 754 had attended the earlier kick-off at Walton Hall Park, which has a capacity of 2,200.

Everton climbed up to seventh with the victory against Palace, who remain bottom. Leif Gunnar Smerud’s visitors had hoped to climb out of the relegation zone but they were second-best against an Everton team that dictated the majority of the game.

After a spell of pressure from the hosts, Justine Vanhaevermaet’s far-post header from a Sara Holmgaard corner put Everton in front shortly before half-time, and it was Holmgaard’s turn to head in expertly, shortly after the break, from Kelly Gago’s well-placed, right-wing cross.

Gago then displayed strength and power to outmuscle her marker, weave into the penalty area and rifle in the third.

The Everton manager, Brian Sørensen, praised his side’s patience in their search for goals, saying: “We kept our calm. [At half-time] I just said to the girls: ‘We need to be a bit sharper, and do things with conviction,’ which I think the second goal illustrated, with how we played fast and broke away. That’s what I want from them. We don’t need to play with our handbrake on. We need to play full-power, but also still be smart, of course.”

The match was a first appearance of the season for the Everton forward Rikke Madsen, on as a second-half substitute, as she played competitively for the first time since giving birth. After the final whistle, her day got even better as her partner proposed on the pitch. Madsen said “yes”, and the happy couple celebrated the moment with their newborn baby on the pitch with her teammates.

The atmosphere was somewhat less joyful in the Palace camp, as they remain a point adrift at the bottom, but Smerud is staying positive. He said: “Today we fought until the end, so this is not a defeated team at all. I see that our shape and our way of working as a unit is better. Today we had to make some changes which opened it up a bit more in the second half, but our defensive shape has been really improving, step-by-step.”

Header image: [Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images/Reuters]