Manchester club go top of WSL with ruthless 3-0 win over west London rivals

The Women’s Super League has a new leader and, on this evidence, a new problem for everyone else. A Manchester club beat their west London rivals 3-0 on Sunday with a performance of such control that the visiting manager, whose side had won the previous five meetings, described it afterwards as “a lesson, and I do not use that word lightly”.

Nia Blackwood, the 19-year-old winger who began the season as a substitute, scored twice in the first half and set up the third for the Norwegian striker Ingrid Solheim three minutes after the break. By the hour the home crowd of 8,412 was chanting Blackwood’s name, and the visitors, whose squad cost more than any in the league, had managed a single shot on target.

The first goal, on 14 minutes, was a run from inside her own half past three defenders and a finish across the goalkeeper. The second, on 38, was a header from a corner, which drew the biggest cheer of the afternoon because, at 5ft 3in, Blackwood is the shortest player in the squad.

“She has been asking me for weeks what she needs to do to start,” said the home side’s manager, Katrine Møller. “I told her: score goals that make it impossible for me not to. I think she has understood.”

The result takes the Manchester club to the top of the table on 16 points from six games, one ahead of the north London club who beat a Merseyside side 2-1 on Saturday. The west London club, who have not finished outside the top two since 2019, are fourth and have conceded more goals in six games than in the whole of last season’s first half.

Their manager, Sofia Rinaldi, did not hide behind injuries, although she was missing three internationals. “We were slow in every way,” she said. “Slow to press, slow to pass, slow to react when we lost it. Blackwood did what she did because we allowed her to. We will see her again in March and I expect the result to be different.”

Blackwood, who grew up in Salford and joined the club’s academy at 11, has now scored five in four starts and is expected to be named in the England squad for the November friendlies. Asked about the possibility, she said she would “take it one game at a time”, then laughed and admitted she had already told her mum.

The league’s next round sees the Manchester club travel to a Midlands side on Sunday, with the north London club at home to the Merseyside team who pushed them hard on Saturday.