Joe Montemurro praised in-form midfielder Jordan Nobbs after she kept her scoring form intact against Bristol City on Sunday as Arsenal beat Bristol City 3-1 in the Women’s Super League.

Nobbs scored for the third consecutive game and Montemurro said: “She’s finding a good rhythm and she’s training really well, she’s happy.”

“Let’s hope she continues in the same fashion but all credit to her, she has worked very hard to get back towards her best and hopefully she’ll just keep getting better and better.”

Arsenal started the game slowly after Thursday night’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City and Montemurro explained: “All credit to Bristol City they were very compact and very difficult to break down and we had to be patient and pick our moments.

“When you don’t get that result like we didn’t in midweek sometimes that emotion can take over but I am really proud of the players because they kept their heads and controlled their emotions and continued to do what needed to be done to break down a very organised team.”

Steph Catley, Kim Little, Lisa Evans and Lydia Williams missed the game with injuries as Montemurro gave an update on their fitness saying: “Kim should be fine for midweek against Chelsea in the Continetal Cup as for Lisa Evans we are just waiting for scan results to come back.

“Steph and Lydia are rehabbing very well and we are aiming towards the international break for stepping them up and hopefully having them back straight after the international break.

“All is going well and we’re erring on the side of caution with both of them, we’re giving players a little bit more time than they need because it’s a long season and there’s lots more difficult games to come.”

Bristol City took the lead with Abbi Harrison on six minutes and Montemurro touched on a poor first half from the Gunners.

“Obviously their goal came from an error and a really good finish from their striker.

“Those things happen in football, we all make mistakes, but I was happy with the reaction to continue to look for the openings and to continue to be patient and we took the opportunities when they came.”

“It was always going to be difficult to break down a very well organised team. We just needed to change the tempo at times and have that patience.”

Arsenal came out in the second half much better and on the half-time team talk he said: “There were some positional elements we worked on, there were areas where we thought maybe we could find some spaces and we spoke about that.”

“We all knew the speed of play had to be lifted at times but it was more about being professional and patient and waiting for our opportunities.”