Right, that’s it from me. I will leave you with Suzanne Wrack’s match report from Meadow Park:
So that leaves Arsenal needing just a point from their final two group games to qualify for the quarter-finals, though they’d have to hammer Barcelona in one of them to have any chance of taking top spot.
Full-time: Arsenal 3-0 HB Køge
Peep! PEEP!! PEEEEEEP!!! All over and job done for Arsenal, with little fuss in the end though they laboured for long periods and had that one huge scare with 15 minutes to go.
90 min Just two minutes of added time to play
GOAL! Arsenal 3-0 HB Køge (Miedema 88)
This is a terrific goal. Catley sends a lovely curling ball down the left channel with her left foot. Miedema, running beyond her marker, brings the ball under her spell with her right then lofts a classy finish past Marckese with her left. She has been a class apart since springing from the bench.
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86 min Køge shouldn’t allow that to deflate them too much. They’ve been within touching distance of both Arsenal and Barcelona for longer periods than anyone would’ve reasonably expected, even if it’s meant parking the old proverbial bus to do so.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 HB Køge (Wubben-Moy 83)
Finally, finally, Arsenal have their second. Nobbs’s pinged corner finds Wubben-Moy thundering in at the near post and she makes no mistake with her header. Relief all round at Meadow Park.
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80 min: What a chance for Nobbs! Maanum scoops a Poborskyesque pass in for her charging midfield colleague, who opens up her body smartly then calmly sidefoots wide of the far post with Marckese helpless. That could’ve settled the nerves.
78 min: Køge make their first change, with Sajewich coming off to be replaced by Fitzgerald.
76 min: So close to an equaliser! And it took brilliant reflex save from Williams to deny Pokorny after she pounced on Catley’s hesitation in the middle of her own box. A heart-in-mouth moment for the Gunners.
73 min: Miedema gets a sight of goal as a deflected cross drops onto her instep on the penalty spot. then she gets a second but Obaze does remarkably well to deny the striker as Mead’s pass looks to have given her a tap in. They may not have the quality of others in the Champions League but there’s no doubting Køge’s heart.
72 min: One-way traffic now as Arsenal search for a second.
70 min: Maanum has a go from distance but Marckese is able to drop on the effort quite comfortably. Just prior to that there was an important touch from Svendsen to prevent Miedema getting on the end of Mead’s pass.
69 min: … punched away by Marckese, sliced on the volley from Nobbs as she tried to return it with interest.
68 min: … and another …
67 min: Miedema brilliantly turns away from her defender and sees her shot blocked. Corner to Arsenal …
65 min: Miedema immediately creates a chance for Mead with a terrific chip into the box but Mead can’t properly connect with her stretching header.
63 min: It looks like Foord has shifted left to make room for Miedema down the middle.
61 min: And Eidevall makes a triple change. Parris, Beattie and McCabe for Maanum, Miedema and Catley.
60 min: You can sense a hint of frustration on and off the pitch now – this second half has been far more even than Jonas Eidevall would have liked.
57 min: McCabe zips in another cracking cross … but again there’s only a green shirt there to meet it.
56 min: … it’s a bit of a double bluff as it’s worked back first then launched forward. Arsenal initially clear and then, when the ball is returned, pick up a slightly soft free-kick as Fløe Nielsen looks to run in on goal.
55 min: Pokorny scurries down the right and wins her team an attacking throw-in down the right that Færge is set to launch into the box …
53 min: Færge slides a nice ball down the right channel for Carusa to chase and she looks to have won a corner … but the decision goes the other way. With just one goal in it there’s still a chance – however slim – that Køge could nick one and really send any Arsenal anxiety into overdrive.
50 min: You feel a second goal would likely bring three and four for the Gunners but Køge deal well with another couple of crosses flung into their box.
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49 min: Køge, as they did in the first half, have begun brightly.
47 min: Carusa does superbly to hold the ball up on the right and puts her low cross into a dangerous area where, unfortunately for Køge, Kim Little is in attendance.
Peep! As the strains of London Calling over the Tannoy fade away, off we go again. (Is London Calling one of those songs, like Born In The USA, that’s misused in sporting contexts? Or does it work? Perhaps a Clash fan can let me know …)
Some half-time reading, and it’s a great writing about a great – Richard Williams on David Lacey:
Peep! PEEEP!! And that’s the last action of the half. Arsenal have had next to nothing to worry about at the back but have struggled to create a massive amount despite dominating the ball.
45 min: Decent save from Marckese as Parris finally gets a chance to sprint down the right channel into space. Her effort is turned away for a corner … that’s kneed over the bar by Patten! That wasn’t far away.
43 min: A wonderful pass from Wälti finds Mead’s angled run but the flag goes up. Mead rounds the keeper and scores … and replays shows she was a yard on.
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42 min: … scuffed rather miserably towards the near post and Arsenal clear without too much fuss.
41 min: Færge thunks a free-kick on halfway towards the Arsenal box and after a couple of neat passes Carusa wins a corner …
39 min: Patten scoops a ball into the box from the right but Marckese is out quickly to claim.
38 min: Little sees her effort from the edge of the box blocked by a defender.
36 min: … a fantastic arcing delivery from McCabe finds Beattie at the back post but the centre-half can only nod into the side-netting.
35 min: Obaze trips Mead on right edge of the area and Arsenal have a dangerous free-kick …
33 min: Arsenal are forced to go all the way back to goalkeeper Lydia Williams with Køge resolute in their defensive shape. Given the gulf in class between the sides, the visitors have been really impressive and hugely disciplined. Arsenal have, in truth, only had one chance other than the goal.
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31 min: It’s all got a little stodgy, which probably suits the visitors more than the home side.
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30 min: Little spins into a little space to give Arsenal’s latest attack a bit of momentum but Mead can’t trap the pass.
27 min: … McCabe pings in an inswinger which is glanced away and out for another corner. That’s worked backwards and the chance fizzles out thanks to some energetic Køge pressing.
26 min: Parris plays a lovely dinked pass towards the onrushing Mead and Arsenal have a corner …
25 min: Parris fizzes another cross into the Køge six-yard box without finding a teammate.
23 min: Mead tests Marckese from distance out on the left and the goalkeeper does well to pluck the effort out of the air. There’s still a little bit of tension in Arsenal’s play, a tinge of the frenetic, which isn’t helping them too much at the moment.
22 min: “Hi John, just want to send you compliments from Denmark for the perfect ø, æ and å in your MBM,” writes Lars Bøgegaard, who knows how to get an email published. “That shows a lot of R-E-S-P-E-C-T for us bloody foreigners. Could you perhaps write a memo and send to all colleagues at Guardian Towers?” Well, not everyone here has my typing skills – I’m up to TWO fingers.
20 min: Nobbs has a go from distance but it’s straightforward for Marckese.
19 min: A decent night for north London’s teams so far – Tottenham are currently 4-0 up in the Conti Cup at Watford. Køge, meanwhile, have responded well to the goal and got themselves on the front foot a little.
17 min: The goal was coming and it was either offside or really poor defending from Guldbjerg, so in this case both the attacker and the defender have had the benefit of the doubt.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 HB Køge (Foord 15)
Seconds ago Foord was denied by Marckese but she gets a tap in here. There’s a hint – maybe slightly more than a hint – of offside about it, but she’s all alone at the near post to steer home Mead’s low cross.
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14 min: Svendsen gets a vital touch on Wälti’s dinked throughball – Mead was in on goal if it were not for the slightest nick off the toe that took the ball away to Marckese.
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11 min: Little keeps pulling the strings and feeds the ball to McCabe, whose cross is deflected away for a corner. It’s scuffed to the near post and then behind for a goal kick.
9 min: A brief scramble in the Køge box sees Little presented with the best chance of the game so far, but her shot is blocked at source. The pressure is growing on the visitors’ backline.
7 min: Some neat stuff from Arsenal gets Walti into some space but again her ball through to the front three is met by a Køge defender. Arsenal look bright, though.
5 min: Arsenal have settled into the game now and the pattern is set – they have the ball, Køge are sitting deep with a bank of four in midfield and five at the back. Nobbs finds a little pocket of space and looks to play in Little but the pass is intercepted.
4 min: Parris zips a ball in from the Arsenal right but Foord is narrowly offside.
2 min: Koge in fact have made a very bright start and get another couple of decent crosses into the box.
1 min: Koge make a decent start down the left and get into a dangerous position in the Arsenal box before a weak pass.
Peep! Off we go then. Arsenal in red, Køge in bright green.
An email from Charles Antaki: “David Lacey would, I like to think, have approved of the space given to women’s football in the Guardian, and it would have been wonderful to have seen what he might have come up with in a minute-by-minute report of this game – he’d have raised an eyebrow at what the coach could do to replace the apparently irreplaceable Leah Williamson, and had a few tart things to say about the misfiring forward line in the game against Spurs, then he’d settle back enjoy what will probably be a pretty easy victory. But he’d have had a wry word about it, too.”
Out come the players. Kim Little leading the Gunners and Kyra Carusa the visitors. It does sound like a few Køge fans have made their way to Meadow Park, which is a decent effort.
The players are in the tunnel at Borehamwood’s Meadow Park. It’s a chilly evening in north London but a dry one.
The full-time whistle has just blown in Germany and Barcelona, who look a class apart, have romped to a 5-0 win over Hoffenheim. That result means that, as long as they win this evening, Arsenal can qualify for the quarter-finals with just a point in either of their last two games (Barcelona at home on 9 Dec, Hoffenheim away on 15 Dec).
Some sad news to report this evening: David Lacey, the Guardian’s football correspondent for 30 years up to 2002, has died at the age of 83.
He truly was a great among match reporters, the gold standard to which the best still aspire, and the Guardian’s man at almost all the biggest games of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
A few examples of his work are below, all of which would have been dictated down the fuzzy phonelines to copytakers, which makes his prose all the more remarkable (I know from experience how difficult it is to compile a 300-odd word report from Aldershot in this fashion so to do so in such style from FA Cup finals, World Cup finals and the like is mindblowing). A deep dive into his (far from complete) online archive of his pieces would be well worth your time.
On the Ricky Villa FA Cup final in 1981:
The epic West Germany v Yugoslavia European Championship semi-final in 1976:
Liverpool’s first European Cup triumph in 1977:
England v Cameroon in 1990:
And last but far from least, his legendary report from the Azteca in 1986, where England were beaten by “the sorcery, not to mention the sauce, of Diego Maradona”:
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The teams
Arsenal (4-3-3): Williams; Patten, Wubben-Moy, Beattie, McCabe; Little, Wälti, Nobbs; Parris, Foord, Mead. Subs: Zinsberger, Catley, Maritz, Goldie, Houssein, Maanum, Miedema
HB Køge (5-4-1): Marckese; Færge, Svendsen, Guldbjerg, Obaze, Markvardsen; Pokorny, Sajewich, Jankovska, Fløe Nielsen; Carusa. Subs: Uhre, Nowak, Romero, Fitzgerald, Hornemann, Walter, Ostenfeld, Vingum, Kramer, Wik, Adler, Solgaard
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Preamble
The Women’s Champions League has been all about goals so far this season for Arsenal – 15 of them in just three games. Sadly for the Gunners, not all have gone the right way: the 4-1 opening round defeat by Barcelona has left them playing catchup and they’e had a good go at doing just that, hammering Hoffenheim 4-0 and tonight’s opponents, HB Køge, 5-1 in Denmark last time out.
Køge’s only previous away trip so far in this season’s competition ended in a 5-0 defeat in Germany (hammerings being a bit of a theme in this group) and Arsenal will, in truth, be looking to rack up a similar sort of scoreline this evening before moving on to the decisive pair of fixtures in December.
Still, there are no guarantees and, with Barcelona on their way to victory over Hoffenheim as I type, anything other than a win tonight would leave the Gunners hanging nervously on to second spot rather than looking optimistically at the top.
Kick off is at 8pm GMT.
