Full time: Brighton 0-4 Arsenal
Peep peep! Arsenal restore their three-point lead at the top of the WSL with the usual 4-0 victory over Brighton. They were too slick, too confident, too much for the home side, who were never really in the game. Danielle van de Donk, Jill Roord, Jordan Nobbs and Beth Mead got the goals to give Arsenal a perfect start to their busy week. Thanks for your company - bye!
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90+4 min Miedema misses an excellent chance to make it 5-0, lobbing over the outrushing Walsh but also the crossbar.
90+1 min Four minutes of added time.
90 min If it stays like this it will be Arsenal’s third consecutive 4-0 win over Brighton in the WSL. And the match before that ended 4-1.
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GOAL! Brighton 0-4 Arsenal (Mead 89)
Beth Mead makes it 4-0. Walsh fumbled a cross from Walti and then, in her desperation to redeem the error, brought Maier down. The referee was in the process of awarding a penalty when Mead put the loose ball into the net.
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86 min Not long now. The last 20 minutes have been a non-event.
83 min A loose ball breaks to Barton, who batters it into orbit from 20 yards.
80 min The match is petering out. In truth, it was over when Jill Roord made it 2-0 in the 32nd minute.
79 min And now Brighton make their final change, with Lea Le Garrec replaced by Ini-Abasi Umotong.
76 min A double change for Arsenal. Leah Williamson and Jordan Nobbs, who were both superb, are replaced by Katie McCabe and Leonie Maier.
74 min A dodgy pass from Williamson goes straight to Green. She turns, looks up ... and has almost no support. That’s been the case all afternoon.
70 min This must be pretty demoralising for Brighton, who have spent almost all of the match in Arsenal’s slipstream.
66 min A substitution apiece. Beth Mead comes on for Arsenal, with the reliably excellent Kim Little going off. And Megan Connolly replaces Emily Simpkins for Brighton.
66 min “Picking up the score at a motorway service station, where (First World Problem Alert!) their notion of a cortado leaves much to be desired, I see that Arsenal are well ahead - no surprise there - but that Miedema hasn’t scored yet,” says Charles Antaki. “What’s gone wrong, Rob?”
She’s hardly touched the ball. Not that she has needed to – she even made the third with a dummy.
65 min Zinsberger, possibly out of boredom, goes charging out of her area to block Whelan’s cross.
63 min A quarter-chance for Brighton, with the under-pressure Williams heading wide from a corner.
61 min Nothing much to report since the third goal. The intensity hasn’t really dropped, even though both teams know the match is over.
57 min Brighton would surely settle for this scoreline. Arsenal could easily score two or three more.
54 min “Hi Rob,” says Håkan Burden. “Ever since Arsenal won against Göteborg in 2012 I’ve had a soft spot for the Gunners. At least in the WSL. Press and Asante were playing for Göteborg in those days, makes you wonder if the smaller nations and leagues will be able to compete in the long run against England, Germany and France?”
Good question. I fear not, for all the usual reasons, but I’d imagine there will be a bit more equality than in the men’s game.
GOAL! Brighton 0-3 Arsenal (Nobbs 51)
This is a lovely team goal, finished off by Jordan Nobbs. van de Donk’s low ball from the left was dummied beautifully on the edge of the area by Miedema and ran through to Nobbs. She controlled the ball on the run and drilled it through the legs of Walsh.
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51 min Arsenal have two huge league games coming up - Chelsea at home next weekend, and Manchester City away on 2 February.
50 min After some patient passing from Arsenal, Little’s shot from the edge of the area is blocked.
47 min “Arsenal certainly seem to know how to play with the handbrake off,” says Bill Hargreaves. “Front to back class in that team, and they seem to fit like clockwork.”
Indeed. They have the relaxed certainty of champions.
46 min Peep peep! Arsenal begin the second half. A win today would restore their three-point lead at the top of the WSL. Brighton have made a half-time change, with Kate Natkiel replacing Amanda Nilden.
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Half-time chitchat
“Noticing some new fans on the MBM,” says Nic. “They might well be interested to know that most of the WSL games are shown live for free on the FA Player. Some of the games are shown live by BT Sport or the BBC, these are then not shown live to people logging in from the UK. The quality of these games is still below the men’s game but they often throw up some close 1-0, 2-1 scorelines so that they can still be very entertaining.”
And there’s a helluva title race developing.
Half time: Brighton 0-2 Arsenal
Peep peep! The league leaders Arsenal are in control at Crawley after a slick, authoritative first-half performance. Danielle van de Donk and Jill Roord scored excellent goals, and they could be further ahead. See you in 10 minutes for the second half.
45+1 min And now a great chance for Brighton! Whelan, on the right, plays a superb through ball to find Simpkins just inside the area. She controls the ball on the run but sprays her shot wide of the near post.
45+1 min Arsenal almost finish Brighton off on the break. van de Donk slides a precise ball across the edge of the area to Nobbs, who gets it out of her feet and drives just wide.
45 min Roord is booked for a spiteful tackle on Kayleigh Green.
43 min Zinsberger has definitely touched the ball now. She did very well to hurry across her goal to palm Whelan’s brilliant right-wing cross away from danger.
42 min I’m sure Manuela Zinsberger has touched the ball, but I’m honestly struggling to recall her doing so.
37 min After yet another incision down the Arsenal right, this time from Evans, Nobbs clips a first-time shot that is well saved by Walsh.
36 min Beautiful play from Arsenal. van de Donk flicks the ball behind her standing leg to Nobbs, who stabs it towards Miedema in the area. To widespread surprise, she slices her shot well wide. That was a great chance.
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35 min “Hi there Rob,” says Kevin in Clonakilty. “Delighted to see a women’s game covered live. Can’t say I know much about the WPL but will know a lot more by the end of the game. My three 11-year-old triplet girls wholeheartedly agree.”
If they’re looking for a hero, Katie McCabe is a good place to start.
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Inevitably, it was created down the right. Williamson, who also made the first goal as well, curled a long cross-pass into the path of Roord, who made an excellent run off Le Garrec. She controlled the ball just inside the area and finished emphatically into the bottom corner.
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GOAL! Brighton 0-2 Arsenal (Roord 32)
Jill Roord doubles Arsenal’s lead with a fine finish.
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29 min Nobbs and Evans are causing so manyh problems down the Arsenal right. Nobbs wins the ball high up the field and crosses towards the near post, where Miedema’s snapshot goes over the bar.
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26 min Brighton have been better in the last few minutes, interrupting Arsenal’s passing game with some strong challenges.
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You can tell there was a game here yesterday too... pic.twitter.com/ziNRaBzMjv
— Tim Stillman (@Stillberto) January 12, 2020
23 min We haven’t seen possession statistics, but it feels like Arsenal have had at least 70 per cent. The one thing that will please Brighton is that their goalkeeper Megan Walsh hasn’t had a huge amount of work to do.
21 min See 14 min.
18 min Miedema almost makes it 2-0. She has two close-range shots blocked - the first, crucially, by Kerkdijk I think.
16 min “Fear not, Rob, you have at least one reader,” says Siddhant Lazar.
Ah, well isn’t that nice. It makes it all worthwhile. Sorry, what’s that you say, Siddhant?
“And that’s only because my net pack is rather terrible and thus I cannot watch the game online. And being an Arsenal fan, through and through, hopefully, this ends a lot better than the men’s game did on Saturday.”
14 min Brighton have a good home record this season, and beat an admittedly under-strength Arsenal on penalties in the group stage of the Continental Cup, but at the moment they are being outclassed.
12 min Nobbs’ cross-shot from a tight angle is palmed away by Walsh. Brighton are hanging on desperately to their 1-0 deficit.
10 min Anyone out there? Eh?
8 min That was almost 2-0 to Arsenal. Evans’ low cross from the right was miskicked by Nobbs and ran through to Roord, whose low shot was half blocked by Kerkdijk. The ball looped back towards goal and was grabbed by the diving Walsh.
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6 min It’s all Arsenal. Their unusual formation - it looks like a 3-3-3-1, or a 3-1-2-3-1 if you want to go full hipster - means they have a lot of ball players in the team, and at the moment Brighton are struggling to get possession.
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GOAL! Brighton 0-1 Arsenal (van de Donk 3)
That didn’t take long. Williamson drives a brilliant crossfield pass to release van de Donk on the left. She surges into the area, eases Barton out of the way and places the ball past Walsh from close range. That was far too easy.
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2 min It looks like Arsenal are using a back three, although it’s hard to work out their formation as they seem to be playing without winbg-backs. Schanderbeck and Williamson aer almost playing as full-back, with Louise Quinn as the only central defender.
1 min Peep peep! Brighton kick off from left to right. They are in blue and white stripes; Arsenal are in yellow.
Some pre-match reading
Team news
Brighton (4-1-4-1) Walsh; Barton, Kerkdijk, Williams, Gibbons; Simpkins; Whelan, Bowman, Le Garrce, Nilden; Green.
Substitutes: Harris, Roe, Lundorf, Hack, Connolly, Natkiel, Umotong.
Arsenal (3-4-3) Zinsberger; Williamson, Quinn, Schanderbeck; Nobbs, Walti, Little, Roord; Evans, Miedema, van de Donk.
Substitutes: Peyraud-Magnin, Maier, McCabe, Filis, Grant, Mead.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of Brighton v Arsenal from Crawley. The venue has changed but it’s still Brighton away, which means an overload of happy memories for Arsenal supporters. Their team clinched last season’s title – their first since 2012 - with a 4-0 win at the Amex Stadium.
There’s a long way to go in this year’s title race, but a win today feels almost as important. The Big Three have set a blistering pace at the top of the WSL, with Arsenal ahead of Manchester City on alphabetical order, and the margin for error is almost non-existent.
The title may be decided not by their mini-league with Chelsea, but by who drops the fewest points against the rest of the division. So far, Chelsea are the only team to have done so, with 1-1 draws at Liverpool and – yep – Brighton. Even in mid-January, Arsenal know that anything less then the best is a felony.
Kick off is at 12.30pm.
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