WSL preview: Albion face Manchester City

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Albion head to the Jolie Stadium on Sunday for their second game of the campaign.

Heather Miller

2024-09-29T06:00+01:00

Fran Kirby out on the training pitch ahead of clash against City. 📷 Paul Hazlewood.

Dario Vidosic’s team head to Manchester City on Sunday on the back of a 4-0 opening-day win over Everton. Kick off is 12.30pm and the game is live on BBC2.

Team News

Vidosic reported no new injury updates following Saturday's dominant display against Everton and that everyone, except our long-term injured players, will be available for selection.

Head Coach's view

Player to watch

Vivianne Miedema was City’s first summer signing when she joined from Arsenal and marked her debut with a goal against her former club in last Sunday's 2-2 draw at the Emirates.

The WSL’s record goalscorer headed north after seven stellar seasons with the Gunners. She won the league’s golden boot twice, was PFA player of the year in 2018-19, when she scored 22 goals, and included on three occasions in the WSL team of the year.

The 28-year-old is the highest scoring Dutch player of all time, with 95 goals in 118 appearances, and was also top scorer at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 with ten goals.

Miedema was also the first player in WSL history to reach 100 goal involvements, something she achieved with 70 goals and 30 assists. She’s had a hand in 15 goals in ten games against Brighton (7 goals, 8 assists) with only Miedema herself against Bristol City (14 goals, 5 assists) having more goals and assists combined against a single club in WSL history.

Match facts and stats

Manchester City have won nine of their 11 WSL meetings with Brighton and Hove Albion but did lose this fixture last season 1-0 (D1).

After failing to win their first five away games against Manchester City between 2018-19 and 2022-23 (D1 L4), Albion won this fixture 1-0 last season; they could become just the second team to win back-to-back away matches in the competition against the Cityzens after Arsenal who did so in 2014/2015.

Manchester City have won just one of their last four opening home games of a WSL season (D2 L1), a run that began with a goalless draw against Albion in 2020-21.

Albion have won their first away game in two of the last three Women’s Super League campaigns (L1), winning 2-1 at Everton last season.

Manchester City drew 2-2 with Arsenal on MD1 of this season’s WSL but have never drawn their opening two games in a season; the only two times they’ve failed to win their opening two games were when losing their opening two in 2014 and 2022-23. Indeed, City haven’t drawn consecutive games within the same season since June 2016.

The two sides to complete the most passes in the WSL on MD1 this season were Manchester City (500) and Albion (483), while the top-two players for completed passes were City’s Alex Greenwood (108) and Albion’s Guro Bergsvand (84).

Since Manchester City last failed to score in the WSL in a 1-0 defeat to Brighton in November last season, they have scored 53 WSL goals, second only to Chelsea (54) in that time, while also having more shots on target than anyone else (140).

Brighton enjoyed a 4-0 win in Dario Vidosic’s first WSL game in charge on MD1 against Everton. It was their second win by 4+ goals in 2024 (also 7-3 vs Bristol City in March), something they’d only achieved twice in 112 games between 2018 and 2023.

Brighton’s Kiko Seike became the first player in WSL history to score a hat-trick on her debut in the competition in their 4-0 win over Everton. The most goals a player has netted in her first two games is five by Rachel Williams in 2011 for Birmingham (two on debut, three in second game).

Match officials