Olivia Smith dazzles and Renee Slegers gets firm as Arsenal crawl to a big three points

The Arsenal head coach said she was the "firmest" she had ever been on Saturday as the Gunners prevailed against Liverpool

Olivia Smith in full flight during Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Liverpool. Credit: Getty Images

Sometimes, you wonder if football’s scriptwriters can be a little too predictable.

Much of the pre-match narrative ahead of Arsenal’s return to WSL action centred around Olivia Smith. The Canadian, who had been without a goal since the opening day of the season, was facing her former club, Liverpool, for the first time since joining Arsenal for a then-world record £1 million fee in the summer.

The question of whether she would rise to the occasion was always likely to define how Arsenal fared against the WSL’s bottom club, and the answer from Smith was resounding. The 21-year-old proved to be Arsenal’s difference maker in an eventual 2-1 win on Saturday lunchtime.

Booed by a section of the travelling fans, who made up a small sliver of the over 34,000 in attendance at Emirates Stadium, Smith played like a women possessed in what was, in the first half, certainly, an otherwise lacklustre Arsenal performance.

Smith’s 17^th-minute strike to open the scoring was eerily reminiscent of her first goal for Arsenal. Receiving the ball with her back to goal, surrounded by three green Liverpool shirts, Smith conjured a moment of single-minded magic that served to show just why the Gunners had done everything in their power to snatch the player from their opponents on the day. She showed strength and agility to turn away from the bodies around her. Then the young Canadian was able to slam a low driven shot past Faye Kirby in the Liverpool goal, having seemingly been staring down a blind alley just a matter of seconds earlier.