Miedema propels Manchester City closer to WSL title with derby stroll against United

The latest leg of Manchester City’s victory lap took them to Old Trafford and they did not simply show Manchester United why they are going to become the Women’s Super League champions. They tore them apart in the process.

The away side’s symbolic 3-0 win at the home of their embarrassed neighbours demonstrated their vast superiority, and perhaps the only surprising thing was that they did not score more than Vivianne Miedema’s two headers and Kerstin Casparij’s far-post finish from a Lauren Hemp cross. It could easily have been five or six, with Hemp hitting the bar before a disallowed Rebecca Knaak goal, which left everybody in the stadium confused, in a first half when the visitors carved open the home defence with ease.

City have certainly been helped domestically by not playing in the Champions League this season and the extra midweek rest; this match sandwiched in between the two legs of Manchester United’s quarter-final against Bayern Munich. Yet, even with fresher legs than a tired United, it was not supposed to be this easy. It was not supposed to look like there was such a wide chasm between the two teams.

It is now most certainly a matter of when, not if, City will win the title. This most satisfying of victories for Andrée Jeglertz’s side put them 11 points clear at the top, and needing a maximum of five points from their remaining three league matches - all of which are against teams in the bottom four - to clinch their first league trophy in a decade.

This result mathematically ended second-placed United’s own title chances; Marc Skinner’s team only have three league games remaining. It also all but ended the defending champions Chelsea’s hopes, as they are 12 points adrift with a vastly inferior goal difference and only four games remaining, marking a significant end of an era after six consecutive titles. Arsenal remain the sole challengers, with three games in hand and 14 points to make up from six games prior to their Saturday evening kick-off at home to Tottenham.

Just like on Wednesday against Bayern Munich, when United lost 3-2 on the same ground, they made a rather sleepy start, so much so that City almost took the lead after only 21 seconds, when an Alex Greenwood shot was saved by Phallon Tullis-Joyce. Inside the first 20 minutes, though, they had managed to scored twice through Miedema headers, the first from a curling Greenwood corner and the second from a Casparij cross which found an unmarked Miedema in acres of space, almost surprised by how slack the United defending was.

Hemp also bent a sumptuous curling effort from the edge of the area that struck the crossbar, before Knaak nodded in from a corner, the goal disallowed after Aoba Fujino was adjudged to have impeded the goalkeeper. The division’s top scorer Khadija Shaw had a fierce drive well saved by Tullis-Joyce before the break and Yui Hasegawa placed wide from a City chance in the second half as their dominance continued, before Casparij tucked in the third following a smooth break forward.

Shaw had a great chance to make it 4-0 in stoppage time but fired narrowly wide . The City fans cared not, as they celebrated another milestone victory on their stroll towards the title, and the majority of the 24,983 crowd where left wondering how many more years it will be before United mount a serious title bid.

Header image: [Photograph: Craig Brough/Action Images/Reuters]