Manchester City Beats Liverpool 4-2 in WSL Thriller
Lauren Hemp struck in the opening minutes and again deep into stoppage time as Manchester City clung on, then roared away, to beat Liverpool 4-2 and keep their perfect WSL title defence alive at the Joie Stadium.
For 90 minutes, that record was hanging by a thread.
City’s 13-match winning run on their own patch was under real threat as Liverpool harried, pressed and led, only to see late mistakes ruthlessly punished by the champions.
Hemp lights the fuse, Liverpool hit back
City started like a side determined to remind everyone why they are champions. On 13 minutes, a slick, incisive move sliced Liverpool open and Hemp arrived to finish it off for her first goal since November. One touch, one clean strike, and City were rolling.
Liverpool didn’t flinch.
Six minutes later, a mix-up at the back from City opened the door. Alice Bergstrom pounced, drilling home to level and silence the home crowd. Suddenly, the swagger in sky blue turned into uncertainty.
The visitors sensed more. They pressed higher, bit into tackles and forced City into rushed decisions. On 28 minutes, the pressure paid again. Vivien Endemann, already influential after setting up the first, met a loose ball in the box and volleyed with venom. Her effort fizzed through Ayaka Yamashita’s outstretched hand and Liverpool were 2-1 up, fully on merit.
City staggered. Liverpool looked sharper, more decisive, more confident. For long spells, they were the side dictating the tempo.
Shaw drags City back
Champions, though, carry a different kind of threat. Khadija “Bunny” Shaw has made a habit of bailing City out, and she went back to work here.
She rattled the post on 39 minutes as City scrambled for a way back before the break. The warning was clear. Liverpool didn’t quite heed it.
In first-half stoppage time, Hemp drove at the defence again and let fly. Khiara Keating, facing her former club, spilled the shot and Shaw was exactly where she always seems to be – in the six-yard box, alive, alert, and ruthless. She poked home her fourth WSL goal of the season to make it 2-2.
Once again, City’s summer “business” looked very simple: keep Shaw. Nothing more needed.
After the interval, Liverpool regrouped and went again. Keating had to tip over another Shaw effort on the hour, but the visitors continued to compete toe-to-toe, snapping into duels and breaking with purpose. For long stretches, they looked like the side more likely to land the next decisive punch.
Liverpool blink, City pounce
The game was still crackling on the edge as it ticked into the final minute of normal time. A draw felt fair. Liverpool had matched City stride for stride, and then some.
Then came the moment that broke them.
In the 90th minute, a hopeful ball into the box turned into a nightmare for Liverpool captain Grace Fisk. Under pressure, she diverted the ball into her own net. A horrible own goal, a brutal twist. City, almost out of nowhere, were 3-2 up just as five added minutes went up.
Liverpool reacted with emotion rather than control. Chasing an equaliser, they flooded bodies forward. It was bold. It was also exactly what Hemp wanted.
With Liverpool stretched and exposed, Hemp exploded into space on the counter. One long surge, green grass in front of her, and only Keating to beat. She had time to think – perhaps too much – but stayed calm and slid the ball past her former team-mate to make it 4-2 in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
From jeopardy to daylight in the blink of an eye.
“It shows we’ve got a lot of depth… we really needed that,” Hemp told Sky Sports afterwards, admitting she’s “not usually” the one on the scoresheet but relishing the decisive role.
Champions’ mentality, challenger’s statement
For Andree Jeglertz, it was another test of City’s resilience passed. His side had “gave them two goals almost,” as he put it, but still found a way to score four and extend their lead at the top of the table to five points ahead of the rest of the weekend’s fixtures.
“They never stop believing, they keep on going and in the end, we are winners,” he said, praising Hemp as a “game changer” who simply never stops running.
Yet this wasn’t a night that exposed Liverpool. It underlined how far they’ve come.
Twelve months ago, the club were reeling from deep personal losses and a crippling injury list. Now, under Gareth Taylor, they are unrecognisable from the side that needed 12 games last season to reach four points. They already sit on that total after three, and this display against the champions felt like another step forward.
Endemann, a summer arrival from Wolfsburg, looked anything but a WSL newcomer. She tormented City’s back line, combining with Beta Olsson and Bergstrom to cause constant problems. For large spells, Liverpool pressed smarter, made cleaner decisions and showed a steelier belief than in previous seasons.
Taylor cut a frustrated but proud figure.
“We’ve just come up a bit shy,” he admitted, but insisted Liverpool were “us” in the way they attacked the game and backed that identity to win them plenty of matches this season. He pointed to City’s ability to change games from the bench, compared with his own options that included two 16-year-olds, as a gap that will take time to close.
The disappointment in his players, he argued, came from the feeling they were on the verge of protecting their unbeaten start – and from knowing they’d gone toe-to-toe with the champions on their own ground.
A title defence with teeth
In a match defined by errors at both ends, City were the ones who made theirs early and punished Liverpool’s late. The scoreboard reflects ruthlessness as much as quality.
Hemp’s double, Shaw’s instinct and City’s refusal to buckle keep the champions out in front. Liverpool, still third, leave Manchester with nothing tangible but a performance that suggests this season’s ceiling is far higher than mere survival.
If this is what the third game of the campaign looks like, what happens when these two meet again with the title race and European spots on the line?
