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Key events
51 min: Russo volleys a ball into the danger area from the left. Foord dives for it but can’t get on the end of it.
48 min: Emily Fox and Lisa Baum are on for Arsenal. Hinds and Reuteler off. (Both half-time changes.) Fox was welcomed to the action with a strong shoulder charge by Grant as she advanced into the Villa area.
Second half kick-off
Allez.
“As a colour blind person like millions of others,” emails Alex, “the City and Lionesses teams look exactly the same, except for the socks.”
Half-time reading, including Suzanne Wrack’s piece with West Ham’s Viviane Asseyi. Liverpool visit the Hammers in one of the 2pm WSL kick-offs.
Half-time: London City Lionesses 0-0 Manchester City Women
Goalless down in Bromley. The hosts have had no fewer than 12 attempts on goal. City have had four, and Mary Earps has made a couple of very handy stops to keep them out.
Half-time: Arsenal Women 0-1 Aston Villa Women
Grant’s goal the difference in the first half. Villa have had one shot, and scored one goal. “The Arsenal” have had five shots on target, it says here. Feels like more. They’ve had 12 attempts in total.
45 min: A minimum of two added minutes in north London.
Arsenal’s Cooney-Cross flashes a shot just wide from just outside the area!
42 min: Stanway shoots from distance. A nice hit but Okuma saves comfortably.
It’s still nil-nil in south London: Manchester City are top of the virtual WSL table with the point that they currently stand to take.
40 min: Not much in that tackle by Harviken, looking at the replay. And Russo didn’t really appeal.
38 min: Russo has the ball again in the penalty area. She flops to the floor, in the general vicinity of the Villa defender Mathilde Harviken, but it looks like she lost her balance rather than it being a foul.
37 min: Grant nearly breaks through again for Villa, with Arsenal pushing up the field yet again. Catley just manages to pull off a well-timed tackle to snuff out the danger. That was very nearly a one-on-one for Grant and potentially 2-0.
34 min: Does another big team talk await for Slegers at the break? Arsenal have looked the better side by far, but Villa’s rope-a-dope strategy has worked to perfection with half time looming.
31 min: The hosts pour forward again, barely able to believe that they are trailing after enjoying so much possession and territory in the first half an hour. Batlle is fed by Stanway, and fashions another good cross from the Arsenal right, but no one is there to meet it for Slegers’ side.
28 min: Géraldine Reuteler, almost immediately, has the chance to get Arsenal back level. But she scuffs her shot from around the penalty spot, and throws her head back in frustration.
Chasity Grant, the Dutchwoman, is released down the Villa right. Arsenal are cut open for the first time. Catley tries to cover, but Grant cleverly shapes to cut inside, then back out, and hits a low shot that is deflected off Catley into the far corner. A second WSL goal of the season for Grant.
Goal! 24 min: Arsenal 0-1 Aston Villa (Grant)
File that under “against the run of play”.
22 min: Taylor Hinds feeds Russo down the left. The prolific forward cuts in, and hits a bending shot that flashes past the far post. Villa cannot contain Russo or her teammates at the moment. That was Playstation football – which I mean as a compliment to Russo – you could see exactly where her intentions were, but Villa were powerless to stop her.
20 min: Leah Williamson hits a lovely pass down the right-hand channel looking for Ona Batlle. Villa manage to clear their lines.
19 min: It remains goalless at the CopperJax Community Stadium, Bromley, where London City Lionesses are taking on Manchester City Women.
17 min: Lyn Wilms of Villa Women gets in a terrible muddle at the far post, letting a floating cross drop and bounce past her. Arsenal are buoyant.
15 min: Villa are being pressed back constantly, and it feels like a matter of time before Arsenal find a route through this defence. Russo continues to link well with Foord down the Gunners’ left.
12 min: Russo provides an excellent layoff for Foord, on the left of the penalty area as Arsenal are attacking. Foord has clear sight of goal, but hits a weak shot straight at the keeper.
9 min: So far on commentary we’ve had two mentions of “transitions” [ugh] and one of “second balls”. I guess we’ll take it.
5 min: Arsenal have started mostly on the front foot in north London and are looking confident in possession, but a clear-cut chance has yet to materialise.
Villa Women have won their past two league games, against Everton last week and Liverpool the week before that. They are hence two wins from eight in the league and sit eighth in the table.
Both teams are in form, then, even if the unstoppable force and the immovable object might be overstating the case.
First half kick-off
Here we go!
Tom Garry
A group of well-choreographed, fancy-dress-wearing school-age dancers fully embraced the Halloween spirit on Saturday as they boogied to one of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits at half-time here. Alas, the match itself was no thriller.
For Manchester United, the only scary thing about this game was how little they tested Courtney Brosnan in Everton’s goal in the first 75 minutes as they demonstrated their lack of creativity.
Five mins until kick-off at the Emirates, and elsewhere. Time for a quick news update from yesterday, via Tom Garry, and a stalemate between Everton and Manchester United at Goodison Park.
Tom Garry
As Martin Semmens, the London City Lionesses chief executive, sits down is his office he looks like the cat that got the cream. He says he has just learned that the club’s Instagram page has generated 34m hits since Alexia Putellas won the Ballon d’Or on Monday evening, and it is only Thursday afternoon. On Sunday two clubs with seven of the top 30 players in the Ballon d’Or rankings will go head-to-head when Manchester City visit Hayes Lane, Bromley. It is, Semmens, says, “awesome for the WSL”.
From the outside, it can feel slightly surreal. The independent women’s club, owned by the businesswoman Michele Kang, are third in the top flight, two‑and‑a‑half years after finishing eighth in tier two, and Semmens believes signing the world’s best player has helped change the mindset of everyone at the club.
London City Lionesses v Manchester City Women teams
The former Barcelona star Alexia Putellas, who won the women’s Ballon d’or for a third time this week, starts for London City Lionesses.
London City Lionesses: Earps, Fernandez, Perez, Leon, Corrales, Geyoro, Arques, Diani, Putellas, van de Donk, Goodwin. Substitutes: Lete, Pattinson, Linari, Godfrey, Parris, Anyomi, Cascarino, Kafaji, Thomsen.
Manchester City Women: Yamashita, Wamser, Rose, Knaak, Greenwood, Blindkilde, Hasegawa, Fujino, Clinton, Hemp, Shaw. Substitutes: Cumings, Fowler, Wienroither, Coffey, Casparij, Lohmann, Beney, Prior, Davies.
Arsenal Women v Aston Villa Women teams
One change made by Slegers from the midweek Champions League win: Leah Williamson starts in defence in place of Élisa de Almeida, who is on the bench.
Arsenal Women: Misa, Batlle, Williamson, Catley, Hinds, Cooney-Cross, Stanway, Smith, Reuteler, Foord, Russo. Substitutes: Borbe, Fox, Wubben-Moy, de Almeida, Little, Maanum, Baum, Blackstenius, Holmberg.
Aston Villa Women: Okuma, Patten, Harviken, Deslandes, Wilms, Kielland, Jean-Francois, Maritz, Kendall, Grant, Vangsgaard. Substitutes: Kearns, Hijikata, Parker, Mullett, Murphy, Imuran, Taylor, Maltby, Kerry.
Preamble
Things are looking up for Arsenal Women and Renée Slegers. Last weekend brought a vital derby win against Tottenham, before a commanding 3-0 victory against Benfica in the Champions League in midweek, including a hat-trick for the inspirational Alessia Russo.
The Gunners return to the domestic stage this afternoon by hosting Aston Villa in the WSL: a third consecutive win would shut down any talk of a crisis after their shaky start to the campaign. London City Lionesses take on the joint-leaders, Manchester City Women, in the other 12pm GMT kick-off.
Birmingham City v Tottenham, West Ham v Liverpool and Brighton v Crystal Palace are the 2pm kick-offs: Charlton v Chelsea is the final match on the menu, beginning at 2.30pm. Let’s
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