Olivia Holdt netted a brace as we enjoyed a dominant 3-0 win over Birmingham City in the Subway Women’s League Cup on Sunday afternoon.
Returning to the starting XI for the clash at Brisbane Road, the midfielder produced an excellent scooped finish just five minutes before the break to open the scoring. Then, eight minutes after the break, she turned provider as she picked out Amanda Nilden inside the box who curled low into the bottom corner for her first goal of the campaign.
The Denmark international wasn’t done there though, later adding another composed finish to double her tally for the afternoon - her fourth goal of the campaign - as we climbed to the top of Group E with five points from our two games so far.
Holdt was one of three players brought into the starting line-up by Martin Ho, with Maite Oroz earning her second start of the season and Josefine Rybrink returning into our backline, as we also claimed our fifth clean sheet of the season in all competitions.
We looked to make an instant impact in the opening stages against our WSL 2 opponents in east London, Cathinka Tandberg firing narrowly wide with a quick snapshot from distance before Jess Naz flashed an effort wide across the face of the goal. Despite our dominant spell in the first quarter of the contest, Lucy Thomas was only tested once as she got a strong hand to push Naz’s strike from inside the right area of the box around the post. The visitors slowly grew into the game as the first half progressed, with Ava Baker a lively figure down the right-hand side, and she fired an effort into the side-netting in the closest opportunity for the Blues on the half-hour mark.
The game turned a bit scrappy as we approached the end of the first period, so it needed a moment of quality to burst the game into life and that came from Holdt. After Oroz and Matilda Vinberg combined, the latter played it through to our number 11 inside the box and she lifted it over the sliding Thomas to break the deadlock. The away side will be indebted to Thomas for maintaining the deficit at one as she tipped Vinberg’s effort from distance over the bar on the stroke of half time.
Having netted her third goal of the season, Holdt was full of confidence as the game restarted for the second period and went close to doubling her tally but this time her lofted effort over Thomas found the side-netting after a lovely pass from Summanen to set the midfielder through. However, eight minutes into the restart, Holdt turned provider for our second of the afternoon. After Vinberg was denied by the body of Thomas, Holdt produced some lovely footwork just outside the boz before picking out Nilden inside the box, on the left, who cut inside on to her right foot and curled low into the far bottom corner.
The two-goal advantage gave us some breathing space before, in the 74th minute, Holdt was inspirational once again to grab her second of the afternoon. Similar to the first goal, Vinberg played the ball into Holdt inside the box and she showed complete composure once again, rounding the Blues’ keeper before slotting the ball into the empty net. With a healthy advantage in the bag as we entered the closing stages, we needed to remain defensively switched on as Birmingham pushed for a late consolation goal, Sarri firing well over the bar from the edge of the box in the only opportunity to note, as we preserved another clean sheet – our fifth in seven games across all competitions - to send us into the international break on a positive note.
