Jonas Eidevall and our Arsenal Women were left bitterly disappointed yesterday, being knocked out of this season’s Women’s FA Cup after losing to Manchester City 1-0. Our women fought hard but it just wasn’t enough to get back into the game, after falling short in the second half of the game. A hard loss to take and in a competition that we have been so good in before. Here’s a rundown of everything that happened.
The first half was very 50/50 and both Arsenal and City had their chances early. Attacking and pressing fast, it looked like a game of tennis for the first half an hour, with the ball pretty much bypassing the midfield and going from half to half.
Manchester City’s keeper was in great form and made some great saves through the first half with early chances from Cailtin Foord but were saved easily by the City keeper. City had their own chances in the first half but Sabrina D’Angelo stayed solid and our defence were looking strong, and marking the City women well. The first half finished and the score was 0-0 after a very physical first half from both teams.
The second half started and Arsenal looked like they had a new breath of life and were raring to go. Victoria Pelova came very close to finding the bottom corner left hand corner of the net, with a curling shot that just took a tiny deflection and went wide.
In the 60th minute Chloe Kelly whipped a ball in from the corner, landing on the head of Bunny Shaw. Shaw sent the ball looping towards the top right corner but it was saved by the fingertips of D’Angelo to keep the scores level.
In the 75th minute City were awarded a free kick towards the right wing, with Chloe Kelly stepping uo to take it. Kelly whipped the ball into the box, hitting Steph Catley by surprise, and landing at the feet of Laia Aleixandri, who was in the right place at the right time to smash the ball into the net, right in front of goal, to make it 1-0 to the visitors with just 15 minutes left to play. Catley should have cleared the ball as far as possible but was caught by surprise and punished.
Arsenal then began to ramp up their attack and started to go for it. Emily Fox, in the 86th minute, brought the ball through the midfield, and taking a shot just outside the box, which took a small deflection that saw the ball narrowly miss the bottom left corner of the City goal.
6 minutes of extra time was added and Arsenal were well and truly going for it, spreading play as wide as they could to whip into the box, nearly catching out the keeper with a looping header from Pelova that Keating had to leap and save.
Kim Little came close again in the 4th minute of extra time with a rocket of a shot from just outside the box, but Keating again came in for city, with a great save with her fingertips to take the ball over the bar for a corner.
The ball was then whipped into the box by Catley and, from what I saw, went over the line before Keating had grabbed the ball, but the referee disagreed and didn’t award the goal, leaving Arsenal to hear the final whistle and were knocked out of this season’s FA Cup.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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