Aoife Mannion made her long-awaited return from injury during Manchester City’s 4-0 win over West Ham.
How The Teams Lined Up
Manchester City: Roebuck; Bronze (Coombs 64′) Houghton (c), Dahlkemper, Greenwood, Walsh, Weir (Mannion 77′) Stanway, Kelly (Davies 83′) Hemp (Lavelle 64′) White.
Unused subs: Bardsley, Window.
West Ham United: Arnold; Redisch, Flaherty (c) Fisk, Vetterlein, Pacheco, Longhurst, Joel (Barker 71′) Van Egmond, Svitkova (Cissoko 81′) Leon (Mustafa 85′)
Unused subs: Brosnan, Dali, Thomas.
As it happened
Both sides started off strong, with good spells of possession until Man City opened the scoring through Caroline Weir. It was close range tap in, assisted by Chloe Kelly with a cross in the ninth minute.
(Photo by Manchester City FC)
The Hammers progressed forward on a number of occasions through Redisch, who put in some good crosses for her teammates.
City doubled their lead a few minutes before the break. Another fantastic ball played in by Kelly met Stanway, who was there to fire the ball past Arnold.
Second Half
The two sides returned after the half-time interval but no changes were made by either manager during the break.
Olli Harder’s side were awarded a free-kick just outside the area after Leon was challenged by Houghton. However, the opportunity was wasted as it didn’t trouble Roebuck.
Man City continued to pile on the pressure with consecutive corners, which resulted in a third goal. White flicked the ball goal-wards and beyond the goalkeeper for her seventh of the season.
After minutes of coming off the bench, Rose Lavelle capitalised on an error at the back and scored City’s fourth goal of the afternoon.
The match finished 4-0 to Manchester City leaving, them third in the table just five points behind Chelsea.
Dream Debut and Return
City’s latest January signing Abby Dahlkemper featured in the starting eleven to face West Ham for the first time.
She partnered Houghton in defence, keeping a clean sheet and helping to secure all three points.
Dahlkemper comfortably played the entire 90 minutes of the match. She recorded a passing accuracy of 91% (via @NwslAnalitca on Twitter).
A significant moment in the match came in the 77th minute when Weir was replaced by Aoife Mannion.
The defender has been sidelined due to an ACL injury but she has finally made her long-awaited return.
Players Of The Match
Manchester City: Alex Greenwood had a solid performance at left-back, getting herself into good attacking positions.
She also created opportunities for herself and provided one assist as well as a clean sheet.
West Ham United: Gilly Flatherty showed real qualities of a captain although her side were losing she motivated her team to keep going.
Defensively, her performance was very good – mopping up the majority of mistakes in the final third.
