Pre-season begins with big win over London City Lionesses

Lenna Gunning-Williams netted a brace as we kicked off our pre-season programme with a comfortable 6-1 victory over London City Lionesses on Saturday evening.

Shuang Wang – a first goal as a Spurs player – and Jess Naz were on target in the first half with composed finishes inside the box and, despite Shen Mengyu cutting the deficit just before half time, we pulled away after the break as Martha Thomas and Gunning-Williams found the back of the net before a stunning strike from Olga Ahtinen secured the win at Hotspur Way.

There were also first appearances in our colours for Ella Morris, who provided the assist for our second goal, and Araya Dennis as Vilahamn gave match minutes to 23 players during the course of the game in warm, tough conditions.

London City Lionesses, who finished eighth in the FA Women’s Championship last season, are well into their pre-season schedule and it showed in the opening stages as they pressed right from the start, with Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah sending an effort from around 20 yards out wide of the post.

However, we grew into the game before opening the scoring on 19 minutes as Drew Spence picked out Wang with a lovely reverse pass and the midfielder displayed some excellent footwork inside the box to create space before slotting her left-footed effort into the bottom corner.

We doubled our advantage just before the half hour mark as Morris’ ball over the top allowed Naz to advance into the box, she switched the ball onto her left-foot before firing past Grace Moloney. The visitors pulled a goal back in the closing stages of the first half as Mengyu won the ball off Summanen on the edge of the box and rifled her effort into the roof of the net.

We named a completely new XI after the break, but it took us less than a minute to reinstate our two-goal advantage with Thomas back amongst the goals, picking out the bottom left corner after the visitors fail to clear their lines. Three minutes later, and it was four as Thomas turned provider, her low cross found Gunning-Williams and she took one-touch before curling her effort into the far corner.

Eleanor Heeps produced a routine save as Teyah Goldie’s header fell straight into her hands, while we maintained a positive level of intensity as the second half went on and, on 69 minutes, we further extended our advantage as Thomas and Gunning-Williams linked-up once again, the latter drilling a low first-time effort past Moloney.

London City Lionesses had no real response after that as we continued on the front foot before we wrapped up the scoring nine minutes from time after Ahtinen’s powerful strike from distance found the top right-hand corner, rounding off a positive evening at our Enfield training base.