Arsenal teen set for first England call-up as Everton get no home relief at the Hill Dickinson Stadium
Chelsea took three more points with a 1-0 victory over a tenacious Tottenham side to maintain their lead at the top of the WSL table, but neither Manchester City nor Manchester United are going away after also securing respective victories over Liverpool, who remain useless, and Everton, our loser of the week.
Our winner is from Hale End academy as we look forward to the return of international football.
Winner: Katie Reid
Sarina Wiegman will name her first England team since the Lionesses retained their Euro title on Tuesday, and the biggest decisions concern central defender.
She will be without Chelsea’s Millie Bright, who announced her retirement from international football after dropping out of Euro 2025 selection, and captain Leah Williamson, who is yet to play this season due to a knee injury.
And while she could use Maya le Tissier in central defense for the friendlies against Brazil and Australia at the end of the month, she prefers the Man Utd skipper at full-back, meaning she could call up 19-year-old Katie Reid for the first time.
Reid kept fellow England defender Lotte Wubben-Moy out of the Arsenal squad while being named Player of the Month for September by Gunners fans, in what has been a stellar season for the teenager.
“Doing these things in your safe environment and training where everything is isolated, it’s another thing to then compete in the WSL and put in that performance at such a high level against top opposition, top players,” Arsenal boss Renee Slegers said.
“I’m so impressed with her. We knew she could do that and that’s the type of player she is, but to be able to apply herself like that in high-level WSL matches. It’s really, really good.”
The way she responded to what was a disastrous start to her first game of the season when she brought down Nikita Parris in the penalty area with a stupid challenge after 17 minutes was hugely impressive. And after helping the Gunners secure their second clean sheet of the season in the 1-0 win over Brighton, she is now Williamson’s undisputed understudy at Arsenal, and perhaps England too.
Loser: Everton
Everton would have hoped their women’s team would benefit from another bounce in the stadium similar to that of their men’s counterparts. But even though the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium marked the beginning of an improvement in style and good results for Jack Grealish and company.after struggling to adjust to their new digs at Goodison Park, even an outing to the shiny and mighty new real estate failed to shake Brian Sorensen out of his domestic funk.
Honoka Hayashi opened the scoring at HDS, but Manchester United hit back with four unanswered goals to condemn Everton to their third defeat in three home games this season – their longest losing streak for two years. They have not won at home for five years, since a victory against last season’s relegated side Crystal Palace in March.
They have looked good on the road this season, crushing Liverpool 4-1 on the opening day before a narrow 1-0 defeat at Brighton and a draw against Leicester. But they could make Goodison Park the famous ‘tough place to be’ that it has always been seen as – although sometimes without much justification – when it served the men’s team if they wanted to climb the table.