Lauren Hemp

But yeah, I think if he's had to put one of them away, then it would have been a different game, but...

Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp, they're just like the unstoppables at the moment, aren't they? And not many goals come from, you know, there's not a lot of midfielders scoring for Man City and you always go with this, don't you? Do you want more players scoring goals or do you just want two and you're winning games? So it's one of them, but yeah, it's like, do you just put two players on them and stop taking them out of the game?

No, to be honest though, I will give Manchester City massive credit because You know, Champions League midweek, they still don't have a full squad in terms of the depth and they still managed to...

And you can look at it two ways.

kind of reassuring as a fan as well, though, to be sat on the sidelines knowing that you can't do the sort of Real Madrid Galacticos, as in, look at Arsenal, they've brought in players that you would seemingly think would go on and make them real contenders at the top, and it doesn't always happen.

It takes all these different ingredients for it to work out in the end.

Saying that, though, if you took Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp and stuck them in any team in the league...

How far would you have to go down to say that that team could then go on and win the league if they just had Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp in form? Spurs, tight defence.

I think it's that it was kind of, it was, like I said, it was kind of a really good defensive performance, but it has to be almost perfect.

If not 98, 99%, if you want to win against a team like Man City and you want to make sure that a threat like Bunny Shaw, like Lauren Hemp on, you know, running riot.

And I think even, I mean, there was a Bunny Shaw chance that even she even missed, like hit the post.

I mean, that, that, Those kind of like, that's a warning sign.

That's a massive warning sign for me.

But it kind of did feel like, once again, we're talking about the Bunny Shaw, Lauren Hemp show, being the difference for Man City in this game.

I mean, 52nd minute, Lauren Hemp puts this awesome three ball into Bunny Shaw.

rounds the keeper, smashing it into the roof of the net, like a classic bunny shore goal, making it the ninth WSL goal in eight games, creating so much distance now between her and the rest of the kind of WSL goal scoring pack.

And you're literally, what, a couple of metres? Yeah.

So I just had Lauren Hemp running up and down.

I was like, this is a wicked scene.

They played this fast, that intense.

That has taken your chances.

So that is clinical.

And I spoke to Lauren Hemp after the game.

And she said, yeah, that's our mentality.

They took on London City Linenesses and André Eglitz's side ran out 2-1 victors with Khadija Shaw continuing her fine start to the season.

She opened the scoring in the second half and then Lauren Hemp also scored for Man City.

But in between those two goals, London City did pull one back through Yana Fernandes.

And this was probably the game of the weekend in terms of watching this as a neutral Manchester City.

I'll say worth it, Earps, actually.

I thought she did a pretty good game overall.

Made some big saves for London City at times in what was her first WSL start in over 800. days I think they calculated as I saw but yeah getting back to the point Shaw then composed still has to be a defender before putting the ball in the net does that really well and then even with Lauren Hemp's goal as well it's a good cross from Mary Fowler Hemp just gets the edge over Yana Fernandez that extra step Which is a shame for Fernandes because they had a pretty good game.

They had more shots than anybody.

How it panned out was that Bunny Shaw opened the scoring, of course, in the second half before Yana Fernandez brought London City Lionesses level with an earpost header.

But that parity would be short-lived as Lauren Hemp ensured the champions won the Battle of the Cities and returned to Manchester with all three points.

And a 2-1

win.

Did they get a bit lucky in this one?

Yeah, I think they did, you know.

I think my problem with City, especially this season so far, and I don't know if this is a hot take, but I do think that if Bunny Shaw doesn't score and Lauren Hemp doesn't score...

When you kind of strip away that, there is a bit of a, I'm not going to say problem, but it starts to look quite precarious.

I think, yeah, it was a good Mubs energy, to be honest.

I think Lauren Hemp is quietly putting together a

really fantastic season.

There was, before the Ballon d'Or ceremony last week, there was this piece, I think it was in The Athletic, I can't remember, that was basically starting the campaign for the Lauren Hemp Ballon d'Or 2027, which is insane.

But also...

When you go back through her numbers this season, she's just been quietly racking up the assists and now the goals as well.

They don't have Bunny Shaw.

They don't have Lauren Hemp.

They don't have Fagino.

They don't have Fowler.

A couple more chances for Man City as well.

But ultimately, it was Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp.

They were the difference makers again this season as they have been so many different times and at so many different points.

And I think just quickly else, can we just start with those two, the form they're in, the way that they are just hitting these levels and finding these little tiny moments that are the difference in matches like this?

It's just for me that London City were very much on top for large parts of the game.

And, you know, for a Man City team to be kind of overplayed, to be completely overawed was quite surprising for me.

But then when you've got these two superstar players in Lauren Hempen, Bunny Shaw, that can just create an opportunity, score with such class and have that clinical edge, I think is so important for that team moving forward, obviously, because they want to retain that title.

But it's just how many games can that, can that happen where a team's on top and then you know having that little bit of luck and having to rely on them so much I would say as well to score the goals and to get them over the line but from Man City point of view they'll be very very happy to have scored so quickly after they conceded as well but yeah it was a phenomenal game unbelievable game it was what we all hoped and yeah so many chances but just lacking that clinical edge from London City Lionesses