Rachel Williams revitalised Manchester United’s title charge by sending her team to the top of the Women’s Super League with an 87th-minute strike launched into the roof of the net to kill off a resilient Reading.
“Rachel might feel vindicated,” the United manager, Marc Skinner, said of the forward who began the game as a substitute. “There were sections that didn’t really understand why Rachel was brought in; proof in action. We answer on the field.”
The Manchester side are level with second-placed Chelsea on 28 points but have a superior goal difference, and sit three points above Arsenal, having played one game more. Skinner praised the late ground-out winner as a “marker of the growth of the team”.
He added that it would do as much for the confidence of his side as the team’s 3-2 win at the Emirates did. “My players have got a new experience of being really tight, 87th minute, and then we find that [Williams’s goal],” he said.
The reverse fixture may have ended 4-0 on the opening weekend of the season, with Reading four down inside 35 minutes, but the threat of an upset from a Kelly Chambers side is always high.
“We know how savvy Kelly [Chambers] and Phil [Cousins] are in terms of this league and the tactics that they use, that’s why Reading are always competitive,” Skinner said.
In the opening 10 minutes it looked as if it could end up being one-way traffic at the Madejski as United strode forward in an increasingly familiar fashion, but Reading did well to stifle the threat. Having ridden the wave of pressure, Chambers’s side began to threaten themselves, with Sanne Troelsgaard’s flick-on allowing Emma Harries to lace a shot straight at goalkeeper Mary Earps.
The midfielder Justine Vanhaevermaet sent Earps into a backpedal moments later with a dipping effort on to the roof of the net that looked dangerous.
It appeared as if the hard work would be undone when Diane Caldwell, who joined Reading from United last summer, upended Alessia Russo in the box. However the Reading goalkeeper Jackie Burns waited and dived low to her right to stop Katie Zelem’s tame spot-kick before collecting the rebound, ending a run of seven penalties scored by the England midfielder which began in 2019.
United’s resurgence late in the first half continued into the second with Lucía García meeting Nikita Parris’s cross from the left and sending the ball across the face of goal, but just ahead of Russo. Hayley Ladd had a shot blocked and Ella Toone’s effort was deflected behind by Emma Mukandi.
It was all United, but Reading had chances to take the lead, most notably when Vanhaevermaet headed Lily Woodham’s free-kick towards Earps, who tipped it wide. With the hosts forced back, though, the inevitable was coming and it was Williams who boosted United’s title hopes, weaving in from the left, evading a few lacklustre challenges before finding space and firing into the roof of the net.
“I’m gutted,” Chambers said. “I’m gutted for the girls, I’m gutted for everyone, they didn’t deserve that. But when you get to 87 minutes against a team like Man United you’ve got to be a bit more savvy. We’ve got to play for the point, get the ball forward, keep the ball forward. It’s a hard one to take but the girls were magnificent. They had the energy and aggression that was needed. How we performed today is how we’ve got to perform every week.”
