Soccer

Five talking points from the WSL, as City fail to put away chances

Five talking points from a busy WSL weekend: Aggie Beever-Jones shows Man City’s strikers where they’re going wrong, Marc Skinner sets his standards high and Jonas Eidevall’s words of wisdom inspire Arsenal comeback

  • It was a busy weekend in the WSL with goals coming thick and fast on Saturday 
  • Arsenal claimed a 6-2 win against Leicester, while Chelsea beat Everton 3-0  
  • DOMINIC KING: I don’t understand what football is anymore – It’s All Coming Up

It was a busy weekend of action in the Women’s Super League, with plenty of goals coming on Saturday. 

Brighton upset the odds to defeat Man City 1-0, with the Cityzens now winless in their last two WSL matches, with Lee Geum-min scoring for the Seagulls. 

Arsenal stayed top of the table, with the Gunners hammering Leicester 6-2, while Emma Hayes’ side, who trail them by three points, claimed a resounding 3-0 victory against Everton away from home. 

Tottenham and Liverpool also went toe-to-toe in a huge clash, with Celin Bizet Ildhusoy and Sophie Haug both scoring for their respective sides to halve the points at 1-1, while Man United thumped West Ham 5-0.

Here, Mail Sport looks at five key talking points from this weekend’s action. 

Manchester City failed to convert their chances on Saturday afternoon as they were beaten 1-0 by Brighton

City are currently sixth in the WSL standings, but are only one-point off a berth in the top-four

Lee Geum-Min scored in the 91st minute for Brighton to seal the victory 

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Same old story for wasteful City

Manchester City’s biggest problem last season was failing to convert their chances and the same problem came back to haunt them against Brighton. 

Despite having 35 shots across 90 minutes, Gareth Taylor’s side could not find the back of the net. 

City wasted several clear-cut chances and were made to pay when their former player Lee Geum-min scored the only goal of the game for the visitors. ‘We were off the pace,’ Taylor admitted.

‘It’s on us, we should have had many goals but it just didn’t happen. We showed a little bit of endeavour towards the end but that’s when we started to clutch at our chances.’ 

It was not an easy week for Taylor, who was in the spotlight after accusing Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall of bullying the fourth official during City’s 2-1 defeat last weekend.

Eidevall said Taylor’s comments bordered on ‘slander’ and called for him to apologise.

Aggie is a super sub! 

Aggie Beever-Jones could perhaps show Manchester City’s forwards where they are going wrong. 

The young Chelsea striker has played just 68 minutes of football this season and has not started a game but already has three goals to her name.

Emma Hayes opted not to send the forward out on loan after previous spells with Bristol City and Everton and it is a decision that looks to be paying off. 

Beever-Jones scored the third in Chelsea’s 3-0 victory over the Toffees with a superb strike into the top left corner. 

Sam Kerr will always lead the line in the big games when she is fit, but the 20-year-old is certainly proving she can be an able deputy and could provide the Australian with some much-needed rest later in the season.

With Sarina Wiegman’s England team struggling for goals of late, a first senior call-up for Beever-Jones is perhaps not too far away.

Elsewhere, Aggie Beever-Jones is showing that she can be a more-than capable deputy to Sam Kerr

She scored during Chelsea’s 3-0 victory against Everton and should certainly be in the running for an England call-up soon

Celin Bizet scored for Tottenham during their 1-1 draw against Liverpool and followed in her fiance, Aron Donnum’s footsteps 

Couple goals 

Tottenham forward Celin Bizet followed in her fiance Aron Donnum’s footsteps by scoring against Liverpool. 

Bizet put Spurs ahead with an impressive solo run and strike, three days after Donnum scored for Toulouse in their 3-2 Europa League victory against the Reds. 

Tottenham boss Robert Vilahamn was full of praise for Bizet after the game. ‘Very impressed, she was unhappy last performance when I took her off, so we had a little meeting about that, but she needed to develop and she did that the whole week.

She took that ball and had a good finish [today]. That’s exactly how I want her to work, so overall she was brilliant for 90 minutes and was a threat all the time.

Good game – wonderful goal.’ Unlike Donnum’s side, however, Spurs were unable to hold on to their lead with Bizet’s Norwegian compatriot Sophie Roman Haug equalising for Liverpool in the second half.

Skinner wants more after 5-0 win 

Manchester United may have hit West Ham for five goals but Marc Skinner still demanded more from his side at full-time.

Despite having five different goalscorers – Geyse, Millie Turner, Nikita Parris, Lucia Garcia and Melvine Malard – Skinner thought his players eased off after going 3-0 up at half-time.

‘I’m happy with the result, goals and clean sheet but I want to be consistent in the message I give to the media and the start to the second half wasn’t good enough,’ Skinner said.

‘We were sloppy, we had become too comfortable after the first half and I thought the first half was excellent. 

The best thing about our group is that I said this at the end in the huddle and they were like “yes, we agree.” 

We want the highest standards possible at Manchester United across the 90 minutes.’ United have now scored 12 goals in two games after thrashing Everton 7-0 in the League Cup last week.

Jonas Eidevall’s half-time team talk inspired Arsenal to turn around a two-goal deficit into a 6-2 victory

Alessia Russo scored to help her side come back against Leicester to extend their winning streak to five consecutive matches

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF! 

It’s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.

It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify

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Jonas’s words of wonder 

Jonas Eidevall needed to give his Arsenal side an ‘emotional’ half-time team talk but even he could not have expected his players to turn their fortunes around quite as dramatically as they did.

The Gunners trailed 2-0 against Leicester at half-time after two goals in two minutes from Sam Tierney and Janice Cayman

But Eidevall’s side came out fighting in the second half. Chloe Lacasse halved the deficit before Alessia Russo equalised three minutes later.

Two more quickfire goals from Caitlin Foord and Victoria Pelova turned the game on its head before further strikes from Stina Blackstenius and Lina Hurtig took Arsenal’s total to six.

‘I’m going to need a couple of days to get over that I think,’ Leicester boss Willie Kirk admitted. ‘What a lesson it is to show us how good we can be, and then what can happen to you if you are off it by even half a yard.’ 


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