Caroline Weir maintained her record of scoring in every home Manchester derby with a stunning late chip from distance to earn Manchester City a 1-0 win and a crucial three points in the race for Champions League football.
“I don’t remember too much about it, a bit of a blur, but I know what I am like when I hit the ball in that area,” the Scotland international said afterwards. “I can’t help but try it. Luckily for me it sometimes goes in.”
Weir’s 81st-minute goal in front of a club-record home crowd of 5,317 moves City to within two points of Manchester United in third place and capped off a dominant performance against their neighbours.
“I think it was a year yesterday she did that when we beat them here,” the manager, Gareth Taylor, said. “It was a different feeling today with a full house, record crowd, it just felt amazing. The celebration was great and I arguably think that is a better execution than last season, which was some goal.”
After City’s first run of back-to-back league wins this season (they won four on the trot from 20 November), the two points dropped as a result of Tobin Heath’s 90th-minute equaliser for Arsenal and a 1-0 defeat against Chelsea had slowed their momentum. The title may now look beyond them, but the improvement in the team since the easing of an injury crisis that disrupted the club’s opening fixtures has been clear.
As the sides spread out before kick‑off, an upbeat Ellen White walked towards the stands, geeing up the sellout crowd. To maintain hopes of a top-three finish and a place in the Champions League a win in this game was sorely needed. Five points separated the two Manchester teams before kick-off, with United in third and City in sixth.
United are also a different beast, having found their rhythm under the manager, Marc Skinner. At the Academy Stadium, though, United were without the influential winger Leah Galton and, for a second weekend, the centre-back Aoife Mannion. The new recruit Diane Caldwell, making her second start in Mannion’s place, and the right‑back Ona Batlle struggled to contain the constant threat presented by City winger Lauren Hemp, the relationship between the centre-back and full‑back perhaps a little too new.
It did not take long for the England forward to get the better of the usually impressive Batlle. In the seventh minute she beat the Spanish defender on the left and the ball was worked out to the right before being swung back towards her by Demi Stokes, but Hemp sent her shot flying over the bar from a few yards out and with the goal gaping.
There was more hesitancy to United, with perhaps the less established back four and fear of conceding inhibiting their usual swaggering forward play. But with four points between themselves and second-placed Chelsea, and six between them and the league leaders Arsenal, staying in the title race will be hard after this result. Despite the stakes City looked the more threatening side, with United’s forward three starved of the ball as City pressed high and hard, winning every second ball.
“I would agree that they won a few more of those second balls,” said Skinner. “I mean, they were helped a little bit by the referee in terms of an unfair bias at times, I felt, but that’s not a deflection away from the result. But I would agree, one of my reflections is we need to be way more aggressive in those one-v-one duels and those challenges.”
In the 81st minute City finally took a deserved lead, having previously gone closest when Jess Park smacked the ball off the bottom of the post. The substitute Weir pressed to rob Katie Zelem and Hayley Ladd before chipping her 25-yard effort beyond the goalkeeper Mary Earps and into the far corner.
“They’re disappointed, they’re devastated in the result, but I’ve asked them to feel it because that’s the fuel for when you play them next time,” Skinner said of his team, who will have a chance at revenge in the FA Cup in two weeks.
