Arsenal are through to the FA WSL Continental Cup final after defeating holders Manchester City 2-1 at home on Wednesday night.

arsenal women conti semi final v city 2 scaled
via Arsenal women on Twitter

They will play Chelsea on Saturday 29th February at the City Ground.

As we have entered a congested period, Joe Montemurro decided to rest two key midfielders with Jordan Nobbs on the bench and Kim Little not even on the teamsheet.

It was still a very solid team with Danielle van De Donk and Jill Roord taking their place in the starting 11. Manuela Zinsberger carried on in goal, and you do wonder if the manager has lost confidence in the Pauline Peyraud-Magnin as she does not seem to be injured and rarely gets a game these days.

The starting 11 was Zinsberger; Maier, Williamson, Schnaderbeck, McCabe; Waelti, Roord, van de Donk; Evans, Miedema, Mead. The subs were Peyraud-Magnin, Quinn, Nobbs, Mace,  Grant and Filis.

Arsenal opened the scoring early in the game. Winning the ball in City’s half, it went through to Vivianne Miedema on the edge of the penalty area. She sold Stephanie Houghton a dummy and finished superbly with her left foot.

https://twitter.com/ArsenalWFC/status/1222645936423342080

Just before half-time, Arsenal doubled their lead as an innocuous van de Donk shot found its way past Ellie Roebuck to make it 2-0 at a critical time.

Some quality team football led to the shot, it was proper football the Arsenal way.

https://twitter.com/BarclaysFAWSL/status/1222615488561405954

There was a big incident missed by the referee just before half-time as Beth Mead was sent crashing through the advertisement boards on the side of the pitch. She was pushed into them but the referee took no action. As we often talk about in the men’s game, this is an extremely dangerous thing to do to any player, as Mathieu Debuchy will testify.

In those kind of situations, referees do not seem to be interested in punishing players despite the offence being covered by law 12 in the red card section. You see it in men’s and women’s football time and time again with no action taken.

Arsenal started the second half with a two goal lead and City tried to press harder earning a debatable penalty as the Maier foul on Hemp looked to be outside the penalty area. But with no VAR available to check, the penalty was given.

Ellen White decided on a side-footed shot that was superbly pushed away by Manuela Zinsberger

Unfortunately, all that good work was undone in the following corner kick as the Arsenal defence simply fell asleep and conceded a simple Gemma Bonner header.

2-1 and game on.

https://twitter.com/BarclaysFAWSL/status/1222624552569708544

Thankfully, City did not manage to pull another goal back and Arsenal made it to the final where they will meet their local rivals Chelsea WFC.

The game will be played at Notthingham Forest City Ground on Saturday 29 Feb at 5.30pm.

Next up for the Gunners, though, is a title decider on Sunday away to Manchester City for what will be the opposition manager’s last game for them before he leaves to take charge of New York City’s men’s side.

Arsenal will need to claim the three points in the three horses race for the title.

As a side note, MCFC fans will be using the game to raise awareness about Fans Supporting Foodbanks, about which we will have more on site later in the week but you can read about here now.

We would actively encourage any Arsenal fans travelling to the game this weekend to seek them out and offer as much support as you can.

As they say in their slogan, ‘hunger doesn’t wear club colours‘.