Things appear to be cooking over on the Women’s arm of the club, as Gareth Taylor’s squad hosted Durham Women for their final preseason match on Sunday at the St. Helen’s Stadium. A number of the new signings like Sara Agrez, Natalia Ramos and Khiara Keating got starts, and Academy forward Vic Jones came off the bench to add to the scoresheet.
The excitement wouldn’t take long to get started, as reliable scorer Beata Olsson scored a hat trick in the opening 20 minutes of the match, starting off in the 13th minute. It would take a goalline clearance to keep Olsson from notching a fourth goal for herself after Alice Bergstrom would release the striker around the goalkeeper, but a Durham defender was there to make the save.
No, the fourth goal of the first half would come from Marie Höbinger, back from injury and back to scoring, as it would be Bergstrom again finding a forward, for Hobie to finish cleanly just before the break.
It would take a bit longer for the scoring to pick back up in the second half as Durham worked to stop the bleeding, but fan favorite Ceri Holland had come on at the half and wanted to get involved. Did she ever, when a beautiful bit of link up play between Höbinger and Olsson would allow Holland the chance to find the net and score our fifth of the day just around the hour mark. Khiara Keating was replaced at the half by Faye Kirby but thanks to the defensive plays by the Reds, Kirby was hardly tested.
As it is preseason, that scoreline brought in a boatload of changes, with new signing Mari Ward coming on to replace Alejandra Bernabe, Vic Jones coming on for Kirsty Mclean, and another academy girl in Lola Kay coming on for the Scottish Sam Kerr. The new additions helped keep the momentum going for the women, with Sara Agrez adding the sixth goal from a rebound off Jenna Clark’s header hit the crossbar.
Jones’ time to shine came with 15 minutes left, as another new signing in Vivienne Endemann set her up to finish at close range to make it 7-0. Durham would score a late consolation goal through Rachel Lowe after she would pick off the ball from Fuka Nagano and beat Kirby to the net, but all in all it would be a successful final outing before the Red Women kick off their season.
I do hate to note that Durham are a WSL 2 side, and we last faced them when we were in the second division, but the new signings showed a lot of promise in what’s been an exciting and productive preseason campaign.
The Women kick off the WSL season on September 6th by visiting Charlton Athletic at 2pm BST. The match will be shown live on Sky Sports on the day, so do tune in if you get the chance.