Manchester City are on the verge of reaching the FA Women’s Continental League Cup quarter-finals after beating Liverpool 3-0 at Prenton Park this afternoon.
Gareth Taylor’s side went into their meeting with Liverpool buoyed by their Vitality Women’s FA Cup triumph from the weekend. As for the hosts, they’d started strongly in this season’s FA Women’s Continental League Cup with an impressive 3-1 win over Manchester United in their opening game and would’ve been hoping to cause another upset.
Jill Scott had City’s first chance of the game when some neat passing on the edge of the Liverpool box opened the space for the England international to fire at goal, however, she just got underneath her shot and it drifted over the bar.
Liverpool very nearly took a surprise lead with a rare foray forward as Rinsola Babajide found Ashley Hodson in behind. The forward spotted Karen Bardsley off her line and tried a speculative long-distance effort that had the City stopper worried but she gratefully saw the ball float wide.
It was going to take something special for City to break down the resolute Liverpool defence and that’s exactly what they produced. A long ball into the Liverpool defensive third was controlled with a wonderful piece of skill from Laura Coombs and her second touch was just as good as the first. As she drifted into the area, Coombs lifted the bouncing ball over Rylee Foster in the Liverpool goal to put her side ahead.
Liverpool boss Vicky Jepson rang the changes at half-time bringing on three new players to try and salvage the game. Yet, it was City’s half-time substitute Rose Lavelle who had the biggest impact. Introduced to the fold in place of Sam Mewis, she came into the action almost immediately as she was picked out by Lucy Bronze in the area and tapped the ball in.
City could have put the game to bed thanks to some great footwork on the left from Demi Stokes. The left-back created a brilliant crossing position for herself and picked out Scott in the area but the midfielder couldn’t direct her header goalwards.
They did eventually have their third goal in stoppage when Lavelle helped on a cross and Jess Park latched onto the end of it to poke the ball through Foster’s legs to put the game to bed.
The win puts City top of their group with two wins from two and leaves them in a very strong position to progress into the last eight. Despite the defeat, Liverpool remain in second following the postponement of Everton’s fixture with Manchester United this evening.
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