Manchester United Women won their seventh league game on the trot to close the gap on leaders Chelsea at the top of the Women’s Super League.
They beat Leicester City 2-0 at the Leigh Sports Village.
The first chance of the afternoon came when Dominique Janssen received the ball from Leah Galton and cut inside before firing a long range effort high and wide.
After 13 minutes, United had another pop at goal as the ball broke to Ella Toone who tried the spectacular but her effort flew into the stand behind without truly threatening the Foxes’ goal.
On 19 minutes, Marc Skinner’s side had their breakthrough as they sliced through the visitors’ defence. A ball was played from the back to Ella Toone, who threaded a beautiful pass through to Melvine Malard who took care of the rest.
The French striker ran onto the ball and intelligently dummied her shot to take the keeper out of the equation, before slotting home to give her side a well-deserved lead.
United pressed on looking for their second with efforts from Toone and Gabby George not finding the target.
On the stroke of half-time they did manage to double their lead.
A great ball by Toone picked out Malard, who spun and played a lovely through ball to Galton. She finished first time to put the Red Devils into a commanding position at half-time.
Leicester took a bit more of the initiative to try to score in the second half but had to wait until the 64th minute to force a save from Phallon Tullis-Joyce.
Nicole Momiki was played in and she released a left-footed shot from the centre of the box but it was well-saved by United’s American keeper.
Leicester controlled the majority of the chances as United were content to hold onto their lead as the second half wore on.
In the 81st minute, Nelly Las had a left footed shot from the right side of the box that was once again dealt with comfortably by Tullis-Joyce who has remarkably only conceded six goals in the league all season.
The home side did have a couple of chances in added on time to add to their lead as Hinata Miyazawa had a right footed shot from outside the box that just missed the top right corner, that was assisted by Ella Toone.
Toone was involved again shortly after as she had another effort from outside the box that was well blocked by the visitors’ defence.
United held on to record a seventh straight league victory and with Chelsea drawing 2-2 with Brighton and Hove Albion, they are now five points behind the leaders.
Crucially, they have five more points than Manchester City, who are in fourth, as they remain in second and aim to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in their history.
The Women will be in action again this Saturday afternoon when they face Sunderland in the quarter finals of the FA Cup.
Featured image Alex Livesey via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
