We were inches away from opening the scoring on 10 minutes when Drew Spence in the centre of the six-yard box was picked out by the header of Clare Hunt but the midfielder’s clever flick towards goal was pushed on to the post by Courtney Brosnan. Eveliina Summanen saw an effort blocked from the edge of the box as we continued to impress on a gloomy day on Merseyside, dominating possession with 67%, and our early pressure eventually paid off on 27 minutes.
Ahtinen caught Rion Ishikawa in possession on the edge of the box, the ball then fell to Tandberg who played a clever flick back to Ahtinen in the area and she calmly slotted the ball into the bottom corner. Shortly after, Bethany England was unable to make a clean connection to flick the ball over her head after Hunt kept Ahtinen’s corner alive while, at the other end, we made a number of key blocks to deny Ornella Vignola and Maz Pacheco to maintain our one-goal advantage.
Then, just four minutes after the restart, we doubled our advantage with a special first goal from Tandberg. After some excellent pressing from England, her tackle on Ishikawa saw the ball fall to our new signing around 40 yards out and, after spotting the goalkeeper off her line, she sent an outrageous lofted shot into the back of the net. Everton looked for a response after Tandberg’s strike but we produced a number of blocks inside the box after a corner wasn’t cleared while Ruby Mace’s shot from distance caused Lize Kop to get down low to her right after it deflected off Hunt.
Rosa van Gool fired over the bar as our defence remained resilient to the home side’s increased pressure while we continued to pose a threat in the attacking areas in the closing stages, Summanen seeing her half-volley inside the area blocked before substitute Charlotte Grant drilled over the bar from a tight angle, as we maintained our perfect start to the new WSL season.