Marc Skinner was pleasantly surprised by Manchester United's WSL opening day dominance

Manchester United stole three points from Aston Villa's grasp on Sunday when Rachel Williams nodded the ball in the bottom right corner in stoppage time.

Rachel Daly broke the stalemate in the 76th minute but Lucia Garcia brought the Reds level three minutes later. All the action was reserved for the final 16 minutes, plus the eight of extra time - Kirsty Hansen was dismissed for a high-footed challenge on Hayley Ladd which then kicked off the action-packed end of the game.

United manager Marc Skinner said: “From my perspective that was an absolutely wonderful performance considering we haven't had time together.

“We’re not quite ready where they know exactly what each other are doing, because we’ve had the five days together. We’ve seen patterns and ideas and I think the best players read off each other - if the pattern disappears they need to know what to do.

“That was a deep block today, because they went down to 10 players, so we bought Rachel [Williams] on to be aggressive in the air - getting crosses in from the wide positions because they were narrower. I’ve always said it’s about having better quality thinkers.”

He put an abrupt end to the quandary of lacking player rotation last campaign. Nine of the 11 were last year's starters, the only changes were the introduction of Geyse and Gabby George. Skinner explained: “Last season we had the best season we ever had - I didn't rotate enough because we didn't have enough games. This year should we be progressing and getting further down the line we’ve got different tools to unlock different styles of play.

“I expected the quality of the people but I didn't expect the quality of that domination. It was a dominant performance so for game one, I thought that was