Alessia Russo scored both Arsenal goals at Anfield on Sunday as the Gunners beat Liverpool 2-1 in the Women's Super League. She now has seven goals in her last four games in all competitions, and Arsenal needed every one of them in a second half they spent mostly defending.
The first arrived after nine minutes, a simple finish from close range, and for a side who had started four straight league games slowly it was the sort of opening they had been missing. Lisa Baum had already hit the crossbar via a deflection before Russo got on the scoresheet.
Liverpool hit back, then had one ruled out
The lead lasted six minutes. Natalia Ramos played a ball over the top, Beata Olsson brought it down, got away from Leah Williamson and finished. Liverpool thought they had a second when Jenna Clark reacted first to prod home from a corner, but the goal was disallowed for offside, the officials judging that Vivien Endemann had touched the ball on its way through. Replays suggested the last touch had come off Arsenal defender Steph Catley, which would have made the goal legitimate.
Russo restored Arsenal's lead just before the interval with a downward header into the bottom corner from a Baum cross that could hardly have been better placed. She almost had a hat-trick on 72 minutes, only for Clark to get a vital touch as the ball was about to be turned in from close range.
'We defended for our lives'
Renee Slegers was honest about how the last half hour went. "Towards the end we defended for our lives and played with so much passion and pride for the shirt," the Arsenal manager said. "We threw bodies in front of the goal. We got it over the line with character and fight."
On Russo she was less restrained. "She's in great form. She's a fantastic player of course, world-class finisher. She gets herself in really good positions in the box and her finishes were just so clean." Liverpool kept pressing through Cornelia Kapocs and Mao Itamura without finding a second equaliser.
Timing matters for both sides
This was Arsenal's third league win of the season and lifts them to seventh, which is not where anyone expected them to be in November, but the fixtures ahead make the three points feel heavier than the table does. Barcelona, London City Lionesses and Lyon are all to come.
Liverpool stay 11th and have now gone five league games without a win. They travel to Brighton next weekend. One historical note that will not cheer them up: Arsenal have now beaten them 22 times in the WSL, with two draws and four defeats, the most wins any club has recorded against a single opponent in the competition's history.
Match facts: Liverpool 1-2 Arsenal, Anfield, Sunday 8 November, Women's Super League. Russo 9 and shortly before half-time; Olsson 15. Arsenal climb to seventh; Liverpool are 11th and winless in five.
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