HB Koge 1-5 Arsenal WCL Review – Gunners keep the pressure on leaders Barcelona

Arsenal cruise to keep close to Barcelona!

Another impressive win for the Arsenal women in Denmark keeps them hot on the tails of Barcelona.

However it will come down to one game in the Champions League group stage for the Gunners and that will be when they face the group leaders in December.

Barcelona had another win, a 4-0 one against Hoffenheim as Arsenal brushed aside HB Koge 5-1.

So Barcelona are unbeaten and as we know the only game we have lost was against our biggest competition, Barcelona.

So we faced off against Danish side HB Koge and the result was never really in doubt.

After a 16 minute penalty decision it seemed as though we were going to cruise but Nikita Parris missed the chance to score after Koge keeper Kaylan Marckese made an impressive save to keep it at 0-0.

But it was only 11 minutes later and Koge were picking the ball out of the net as Steph Catley opened her account for Arsenal and put us 1-0 up going into half time.

It was on 62 minutes that Nikita Parris, despite her missing a penalty earlier, showed her character to score the second, reacting quickest inside the box. Caitlin Foord made it 3-0 six minutes later but we couldn’t keep a clean sheet and conceded on 71 minutes after Madalyn Pokorny pounced on a defensive error to fire past Manuela Zinsberger for a deserved goal for her side who worked hard all game.

However that didn’t last long and and Anna Patten found the back of the net to keep a three goal cushion before Jordan Nobbs wrapped up the game with Arsenal’s fifth after another Beth Mead assist.

So all in all it was a comfortable and controlled game from Arsenal where they didn’t really need to exert much energy and will go into the game at the weekend against Tottenham, as always with the women, full of confidence with the goals flowing.

The most important fixture in the group stages will be the second tie against Barcelona though because the winner of that game depending on goal difference will win the group.

And the most interesting thing about the group is that both Arsenal and Barcelona have scored 10 goals although Barcelona have conceded less than Arsenal. Having lost our only game of the season over in Spain, the Gunners will be looking to exact revenge back at the Emirates.

But if we go out and score four against Barcelona without reply the goal difference will be equal as will everything else, and then there really won’t be anything that separates the two teams.

Here’s hoping hey Gooners!

Shenel Osman

@sh3n3l