Manchester United secured their Women’s Super League top spot with a 5-1 win over Leicester City on Sunday afternoon.
Alessia Russo opened the scoring at 15 minutes and netted her third just after the break to cancel out Remy Siesen’s consolation goal for the Foxes. United’s Leah Galton and Lucia Garcia followed suit and got themselves on the scoresheet with fine finishes to seal the three points.
The hat-trick makes Russo the club's leading scorer so far this season with an eight-goal tally in 12 games and manager Marc Skinner praised the striker's performance and continual development: “One of the things we've asked Alessia to do is stay alive more when it comes to kind of pre-thinking to anticipate where the ball might go.
“I think she's done an excellent job of that today [Sunday]. I think her third goal in particular, where everybody else is switched off and she's carried on and kind of finds the moment to finish. We know she has wonderful technical ability, and great hold-up play. And she can score many varied goals head, floor, but today I was really impressed with her staying alert to those opportunities.”
The hosts had 33 shots on target and the majority of possession compared to the visitors' two shots in the entire 90 minutes, Skinner continued: “I found that we played some really good football. I felt that we should take more of the opportunities we created because there are some really good ones in there. That's me being overly critical, of course.
“I’m enjoying the fact that my team are performing with fluidity and composure and enjoyment. I see them enjoying themselves and that for me is always important.
“We don't ever think beyond today because we don't we're not promised that. So what we can do is maximise the potential and we have [today]. I think I looked at the shots [stats] 33 today in 70% possession so if we keep that up, we'll win more games than we'll lose for sure,” said Skinner ahead of next weekend’s WSL heavyweight clash against Chelsea.
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