Brighton women v Arsenal Women match recap

On Sunday, I travelled up to Crawley to watch Brighton women take on Arsenal Women in the Women’s Super League. Arsenal who were sitting top of the table were looking to maintain their lead at the top  after Man City beat Everton the day before to put pressure on them. Brighton meanwhile were sitting in 9th place and were looking for a win to put some daylight between themselves and Liverpool who were sitting bottom of the table. 

Arsenal were favourites to win the match and in response to Man City’s win, they fielded a very strong side. Brighton on the other hand fielded a relatively strong side but left their best player Iniabasi Umotong on the bench. Arsenal started off very strongly and in the 3rd minute Leah Williamson played a spectacular ball to Danielle Van De Donk who took it past the Brighton defence and slotted it into the bottom left hand corner to put Arsenal 1-0 up. Throughout the rest of the first half Arsenal took complete control of play and didn’t allow Brighton to create many chances, this was all down to the strength of the midfield and defence. Half an hour into the match, Arsenal doubled their lead again after another amazing pass from Leah Williamson who this time picked out Jill Roord. Roord took the ball down brilliantly before calmly slotting the ball into the bottom corner of the net to make it 2-0 to Arsenal. The second goal seemed to wake Brighton up a bit as they went on to create a couple of chances before the end of the half. The best chance fell to Emily Simpkins who got onto the end of a fantastic ball by Aileen Whelan to set up a one on one chance with Arsenal goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger but unfortunately for Brighton, Simpkins dragged the ball wide to keep the score at 2-0 at half time. 

Arsenal again started the second half off strongly and within five minutes of the restart, they threatened the Brighton goal again, this time through nice buildup play as Danielle Van De Donk played an exceptional first time ball through to Jordan Nobbs who calmly slotted it past the Brighton keeper to make it 3-0. From that point on, Brighton did make some improvement and created a couple of chances. The first chance they got was in the 62nd minute when Victoria Williams headed a corner wide of the goal. The next chance that Brighton got came in the 83rd minute as a free kick from Megan Connolly got cleared out of the box to Kirsty Barton who fired her shot over the bar. This proved to be the final meaningful chance by Brighton as a few minutes before the end Arsenal were in again, this time capitalising on a mistake by Brighton goalkeeper Megan Walsh. Walsh initially spilled the ball into the path of Leonie Maier who was bought down, before Beth Mead hit the ball into the back of net. At first it looked like the referee had pointed to the spot to signal for a penalty but then changed her mind and gave Arsenal the goal to make it 4-0. This was the third successive time in the WSL that Arsenal had beaten Brighton 4-0. The win for Arsenal extended their lead at the top of the table to 3 points over second placed Manchester City. Next up for Arsenal is their WSL Cup match on Wednesday 15 January against Reading before they host third placed team Chelsea on Sunday 19 January. As for Brighton, they are also in WSL Cup action as they travel to Manchester to play Man Utd before travelling to London on Sunday to take on West Ham

Player of the match went to Arsenal defender Leah Williamson, who received the award after two fantastic assists in the first half and also for another solid defensive display.