Nobbs wary of Sunderland hotshot Beth Mead

Arsenal need a win at Sunderland to keep their slender FA Women’s Super League with BT Sport 1 title hopes alive – but Jordan Nobbs is all too aware that Black Cats hotshot Beth Mead could take Saturday’s game away from them.

Mead is top of the goalscoring charts, netting 13 times in 17 matches in all competitions.

The Gunners defeated reigning champions Liverpool 2-0 in the last round of matches to keep the pressure on League leaders Chelsea, though they are five points behind the Blues with two games remaining.

Former Sunderland midfielder Nobbs said: “It’s been a few weeks but we are ready to play.

“Sunderland have had a great season. Maybe everyone thought they were going to be the underdogs but they’ve shown what they can do by coming into WSL 1.

“They deserve the wins they’ve got – they put in a good performance against us earlier in the year and Beth Mead has been on fire for them this season.

Sunderland striker Beth Mead

“She has won them a lot of games and will be a threat again this weekend.

“It will be a hard game because it is always hard playing at Sunderland.

“Even when I played for Sunderland, teams struggled when they came to play us, so it will be a tougher game than it was at home.

“But we are ready to play them and beat them.”

Meanwhile, Sunderland keeper Rachael Laws believes her side have the ability to take at least one more big scalp before their maiden FA WSL 1 season is over.

Carlton Fairweather’s side are six points behind Chelsea and are all but mathematically out of the title race.

But the fact that they were considered contenders after promotion last year speaks volumes of just how good they’ve been – beating the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool along the way.

A slender defeat to Manchester City last time out sent Sunderland back to fourth but they will climb back up the table should they beat third-placed Arsenal, and Laws says her side are out to set the record straight. 

Sunderland keeper Rachael Laws

“After the defeat to City, the whole team came off the pitch pretty disappointed,” said Laws, whose side will go to Chelsea for their final game. “I think we played very well, and kept the ball quite nicely.

“There were a few individual mistakes for the goal that we noticed, but on the whole Man City didn’t really break us down and I didn’t have much to do, or have many saves to make.

“We would love revenge against Arsenal. We had a player sent off, and we don’t think that the 4-1 scoreline reflected the game at all. 

“We had chances in the first half to go into the half-time break a few goals up, but Arsenal took their chances and we didn’t. 

“That’s been the story of the season for a few sides though: the sides who take chances generally win their games, and that day we didn’t. Hopefully we can put those wrongs right.

“Things haven’t gone our way in the last couple of weeks, but now we are there in the table, there’s no reason we shouldn’t go into these last two games, kick on, and take maximum points.”