Liverpool Ladies Smash 8 Past Yeovil Town

Liverpool Ladies 8 Heatherson (og) 17’, England 30’, 39’, 55’, 60’, Weir 51’, Clarke 59’, Coombes 75’
Yeovil Town 0

While it was unfortunately easily missed on Saturday due to all the other excitement and heartbreak, the Liverpool Ladies returned to action yesterday in a FA WSL match against Yeovil Town and boy did they make up for the misery of the news.

Yeovil Town traveled to the Select Security Stadium in Widnes yesterday after taking most of December off, with this being their first Women’s Super League match since facing Birmingham City in November. They played Chelsea in the Continental Super Cup December 17th and unfortunately lost, proving the spark to push them further into the league.

The Ladies scored early and often, running right out of the gate and with three of their eight goals that day coming in the first half. Laura Coombs led the majority of the play in the Yeovil half of the pitch and even almost got Caroline Weir the first goal of the day before it was saved by Yeovil ‘keeper Megan Walsh.

It didn’t take long before Scottish International Caroline Weir got into the left channel and found her effort sent into the Yeovil net by their own defender. At 16 minutes in, the game had only just gotten settled. Not even three minutes later and Weir sent a pass down to Jess Clarke on the right, who crossed to Bethany England and saw her effort hit the post and unfortunately not cross the line.

The was just the start for England, as she doubled the lead at 30 minutes on by sending home rebound after Megan Walsh saved an effort by Clarke. Four minutes later, Sophie Ingle sent England a perfect through ball to put England through again and she made it 3-0 without even breaking a sweat.

It only took six minutes after the break for Weir to find the net and make the hosts’ lead 4-0, with a left-footed shot from 22 yards out. Two minutes later England finish her hat trick by pouncing on a through ball and beating Walsh to make the score 5 to the Reds.

Despite all the scoring, Megan Walsh had some magnificent saves throughout the match, in particular keeping out Weir from close range. The ladies went forward often and every time they did it seemed to result in goal, with number 6 coming just before before the hour mark from Jess Clarke with a stunning finish to cap off her outstanding display.

Hardly a minute later England scored her fourth of the day, after receiving a beautiful cross from Alex Greenwood on the left and sending it home. It was her last contribution before being subbed out, to a standing ovation no less, for Kate Longhurst.

Yeovil Town seemed to be all but missing from the pitch as Liverpool continued their domination of the match. It became 8-0 around 75 minutes as Laura Coombs capitalized on a brilliant run from Jess Clarke, finishing off a near perfect shot.

Kate Longhurst and Ashley Hodson both tried to get into the scoring action but their efforts were saved just before the final whistle, thankfully saving Yeovil Town from any further embarrassment.

When speaking after the match, Bethany England expressed her joy at the result and her own stunning performance, saying: “That’s the first time I’ve scored four goals in WSL1 so I’m very pleased.

“We were ruthless and the scoreline reflected that. They started strongly and I knew the defenders were there because they came through me a few times but it was just a case of being patient and sticking to our game plan.

“We knew we could break them down at some point and obviously the own goal gave us that luck and then it wrote itself. We’ve all been on the end of battering’s but it was good for us because it gives us confidence. You can’t take your foot off the pedal and you have to be ruthless as tough as that is on the other team.

“It’s important that we’re getting as many people on the score sheet and it’s not just one person. This is a great start to 2018 for us and now we’ve got to push on because it’s the games against the big teams that will count more.”

Liverpool now sit third in the FA WSL table, six points behind the leaders Manchester City and four points behind Chelsea in second place. The Ladies face Bristol City Women next on the 27th of January in Widnes.