City shoot-out win is a first as Arsenal are outgunned

Manchester City’s Janine Beckie at least gave this final a first to stunt the general sense of deja vu.

The past six of this competition’s showpieces had yielded just nine goals and four of them had been decided by one. That explains why the first half was as taut as they come, a staring contest in which both teams dared the other to blink first until the final went to penalties for the first time.

Georgia Stanway and Kim Little both converted with ease before Lauren Hemp and Leah Williamson had their attempts saved. Karen Bardsley swooped to keep out Danielle van de Donk’s effort after Claire Emslie had scored hers, and, despite Dominique Bloodworth matching Steph Houghton’s low drive, Beckie finished to become the first person to win this cup via a shoot-out.

City had a late flurry of chances after surviving their nerviest moment early on – Houghton’s sliding clearance from Van de Donk’s cross cannoning on to a post – but despite their second-half dominance, this game was always destined to inch towards extra time.

Mostly, this was a case of wondering what could have been had Arsenal’s focal point, Vivianne Miedema, been able to start. The official explanation was that she had fatigue from Wednesday’s game against Yeovil. Arsenal, such is their injury crisis, named just five substitutes.

“We had to play a certain way today – I call it very un-Arsenal – and you will always create very few chances,” said Arsenal manager Joe Montemurro. “That’s not my style. We had these resources and we had to come up with a game plan for that scenario. Did we want to keep the ball a little bit more? Absolutely. These are finals and big moments count.”

This was 22 players sizing each other up, neither daring to give much away. An anticlimactic first 30 minutes had the feel of those slightly perfunctory birthday parties depicted in American sitcoms: an anaemic clown in the corner, a reluctant game of Pictionary, a slew of deflated balloons. There were few errors but, in the ensuing sterilised game of pass the parcel, there was precious little to write home about.

That it took 40 minutes for City to draw a save from Arsenal’s keeper, Sari van Veenendaal, summed up a tepid first half in which the pair nullified each other’s game plans to perfection.

City slowly inched their way towards dominance in the final 15 minutes of a half that sputtered into life only at its death, but their opponents defended stubbornly.

At one point all bar one of City’s outfield players were camped in the Arsenal half but were unable to find a way through the maze of red shirts.

Van de Donk, repeatedly cutting in from the right, was Arsenal’s most dangerous outlet, but met a formidable adversary in Houghton.

The best chance of the half fell to Gemma Bonner: Houghton’s plunging header from Caroline Weir’s corner was saved by Van Veenendaal but the scrambling Bonner failed to turn home the rebound.

There were a few more late jabs but they were more the death rattle of a half that had barely lived rather than evidence of the concerted purpose with which City stunned these opponents 2-0 before Christmas.

Arsenal have learnt, since that afternoon when they were outclassed on City’s turf, that to stop Nikita Parris is to stop Manchester City: in the opening stages she was marshalled ably by Louise Quinn and Leah Williamson.

That Stanway was sucked so deep in an effort to make anything happen meant City were unable to unleash Parris into the sprint finishes from which she always proves so lethal. After the break City were comfortably in the ascendancy. Parris headed against the bar and had another header palmed away by Van Veenendaal.

Parris hit the bar again from close range but so taut were proceedings that even Miedema’s introduction could not turn the tide – until the shootout provided a theatrical finale.

“If the players practised penalties, I wasn’t there [at training],” said City manager Nick Cushing. “We didn’t have a structured penalties session but I know that Bardsley practised them yesterday. They [Bardsley and her goalkeeping coach] nailed it today because they had all the information on the players – we can’t be certain, but they predicted them right.”