Match report: Arsenal Women 7-0 Aston Villa

7 - 0

WHAT HAPPENED

We delivered one of our finest performances of the season so far on Sunday as we defeated Aston Villa 7-0 at Meadow Park.

It was another vital victory in the race for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League title, which now leaves us just one point behind league leaders Chelsea with only two games remaining.

Coming into this fixture full of confidence, we started strong and took just 11 minutes to open the scoring with Vivianne Miedema combining with Beth Mead, before finding the back of the net from the edge of the area.

Her second of the afternoon came from an almost identical position too, with our No 11 surging forward from deep and firing another powerful effort beyond the reach of Sian Rogers.

We continued to dominate for the remainder of the first half and Miedema had a late chance to seal her hat-trick, only to be denied by a fine save.

It didn’t take long for us to extend our lead after the restart, though, with Miedema displaying some outstanding footwork to beat her marker and rattle the woodwork, forcing Rachel Corsie to inadvertently deflect the ball into her own goal.

After seeing Miedema score twice from outside the box, Mead wanted in on the action and scored our best goal of the afternoon, powering home from 30 yards to find the top right corner.

Lotte Wubben-Moy then went on to make it five, reacting first inside the penalty area to convert from six yards, before substitute Stina Blackstenius showed outstanding composure to slot the ball between the legs of Rogers.

But the action wasn’t done there and after winning a penalty, Kim Little showed class to hand the ball over to Nikita Parris, who duly found the bottom corner to net her 50th Women’s Super League goal.