West Ham pay the penalty as Arsenal edge WSL thriller to stay in title race

Arsenal edged a remarkable match against West Ham to just about keep themselves in the Women’s Super League title race, with three goals in six second-half minutes hauling Renee Slegers’ side back from 3-1 down to win 4-3 at Meadow Park.

Mariona Caldentey’s penalty just past the hour capped a sensational fightback after Arsenal had let West Ham race into a 2-0 lead in the first half thanks to a brace from defender Amber Tysiak.

Chloe Kelly halved the arrears on her first start since rejoining the club on loan but when Shekiera Martinez got West Ham’s third at the start of the second half, Arsenal looked beaten.

Their response was brutal and swift. Katie McCabe and Leah Williamson scored two minutes apart to level it, then after a handball inside the box Caldentey’s penalty sealed a sensational win.

West Ham had already gone close through Viviane Asseyi by the time they stunned Arsenal by taking a seventh-minute lead.

Goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar got down smartly to turn Asseyi’s low strike around a post but from her resulting corner, Tysiak rose from among a huddle of static defenders to head it back across goal and into the corner.

No sooner had Arsenal had time to process their misfortune than they fell two behind. Van Domselaar in the home goal was at fault, failing to hold onto Asseyi’s cross and allowing Tysiak to force the ball through the legs of Emily Fox and in, despite an attempt in vain by Alessia Russo to dig it back from behind the line.

There was a frustration to Arsenal’s play that was inhibiting their fluidity in attack, but in the final minute of the half they finally broke through to send relief around the ground.

Caldentey swung over a dangerous cross into the six-yard box to where Kelly was waiting to crash the ball into the roof of the net and send her side in at the break with renewed hope.

That hope lasted until six minutes after the restart when West Ham restored their two-goal lead and it was another Arsenal mistake that led to it.

Russo was dispossessed in midfield by Verena Hanshaw who charged forward with the ball before slipping it through for Martinez who dispatched it beyond Van Domselaar.

At that stage the home side looked beaten and with their title hopes all but over, but then began the fightback.

First, McCabe found herself with space inside the box to line up a shot which she crashed with venom inside Kinga Szemik’s near post.

Arsenal skipper Williamson then leapt to get a glancing header on Kelly’s corner and angle the ball in just underneath the crossbar to draw her side level.

There followed an extended moment of chaos inside the West Ham box where the ball ping-ponged from player to player, defenders flinging themselves at shots with the home side unable to force the ball over the line.

Another Arsenal goal looked inevitable and it arrived when Kirsty Smith handled a cross as it flew towards the back post. From the penalty Caldentey gave her side the lead, just 11 minutes after they had fallen two behind.

Van Domselaar produced two excellent saves in the final minute of the 90 as her side clung to a vital win.