WSL status secured at home to Reading - on-the-whistle-report

A comprehensive victory over Reading secured our Barclays Women’s Super League status at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Facing a Reading side that started the game bottom of the table and who would have moved level on points with us had they won, we produced a commanding performance with a double from Bethany England and further goals from Celin Bizet and Kit Graham to guarantee our place in the top flight next season.

In the glorious N17 sunshine, we made a bright start with Rosella Ayane causing the visitors plenty of problems down the left flank and she had a good chance on nine minutes but Grace Moloney was equal to her right-foot drive.

Reading knew a victory would give their own hopes of survival a huge boost and went close to the opener when Lauren Wade’s deep corner was headed down by Sanne Troelsgaard but Rebecca Spencer saved well at her near post.

We kept prodding and probing, looking for a way to pierce the Reading backline and it eventually came in the 29th minute when a short corner was played to Molly Bartrip on the edge of the area and she clipped over a lovely ball to the back post where England was on hand to head past goalkeeper Moloney.

That settled the nerves down a bit and we looked better in possession as we started to control the play and doubled our advantage with a superb team goal shortly before half-time. Some neat one-touch passing in midfield ended with England finding Eveliina Summanen, she released Bizet through on goal and the Norwegian midfielder showed great composure to make it 2-0.

We kept up the tempo in the early stages of the second half as we looked to kill off the game. And, when Easther Mayi Kith played a short back pass to Moloney just after the hour mark, England pounced on the ball, rounded the keeper and produced an excellent finish to add to our tally.

The visitors were struggling to really get anything going in forward areas and instead, the action was all at the other end. Drew Spence tried her luck from 30 yards but it sailed a few yards over the crossbar before we made it 4-0, Graham latching onto Bartrip’s long ball over the top and she advanced on goal before rolling it past Moloney to score her first of an injury-disrupted season.

Reading did get on the scoresheet with 11 minutes remaining when Justine Vanhaevermaet headed home Emma Mukandi’s corner and that led to a late spell of pressure from the visitors, with Gemma Evans heading over from another corner and Faye Bryson drilling wide from 20 yards.

We almost added a fifth in stoppage time but substitute Manu Iwabuchi’s low delivery was cleared by Evans to prevent Graham from sliding in from close range.