Joe Montemurro praised Lotte Wubben-Moy's performance after Arsenal's 2-0 win over Manchester United on Friday evening at Meadow Park.

The Gunners claimed a huge victory in the race for the Champions League spots closing the gap to three points on their opponents with a game in hand over the Red Devils.

Wubben-Moy scored the second goal and on her performance Montemurro said: "Leah Williamson's and Jennifer Beattie's absence made things a lot more difficult in terms of options but we’re proud of Lotte and what she does and how she represents the club.

"She’s true Arsenal but the thing I am loving is that in every game and every training session she is just growing and growing and growing. We haven’t seen the best of Lotte yet and she’s an absolute treat to coach."

On the importance of qualifying for Europe's elite performance the Australian said: "This is an attractive club and a club players want to come to and of course playing on the highest stage in Europe makes it all the more attractive, our aim is always to be in the upper echelon of European and English football we believe in what we’re doing and we’ll continue to fight."

Kim Little also came in for praise from her manager as he explained on her influence in the game: "Kim doesn’t say much but she leads with actions and today she was mammoth in terms of controlling when we needed to slow the game down and break it and controlling when we needed to speed it up, that’s why she is the player she is and I love working with her."

The win made it three wins in a row for the Gunners and on the momentum that has brought around Montemurro said: "Momentum has probably been our biggest issue this year with the way the fixtures have fallen. It’s been great to get going with more regular games and when you have momentum and things are going your way it keeps rolling."

Arsenal were dealt a blow with Leah Williamson missing out through injury and on that he said: "She’ll be ok, she just copped a whack on her leg, it was a dead leg and it just didn’t clear up well and we didn’t want to take the risk. We had a scan and it was clear, there was just a bit of blood there,there was just a bit too much pain in training. Leah should be back next week."

The referee came in for much criticism after the game and on her performance Montemurro explained: "I learned early in my coaching career not to comment on referees, they’re there to officiate. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll see things we don’t see I believe that refereeing decisions don’t determine games, it’s football that matters. Even if a decision goes against you, you make up for it one way or another if you keep doing the right things on the pitch and on the ball."

Arsenal played much more direct than usual with Manuela Zinsberger playing longer goal-kicks than usual and on that aspect of that tactic he said: "We knew there would be space through our full-backs and Manuela was instructed to go into those areas and we got a fair bit of success out of it and we had a player coming underneath so we were able to expose them, It was part of it but not the only option."

Beth Mead was sent off in the second half for a second bookable offence and on how the team reacted to that he said: "We weren’t nervous, we had to focus on working for each other and reduce the spaces for them to play. We knew we wouldn’t have the ball as much so it was a matter of making sure that we were focused and able to ride that period out. That’s where the strength of the group and the players wanting to give for each other comes out.

"Players had to do things they don’t enjoy doing but they did it for the group and that’s where the character of this team came through."

Wubben-Moy scored from a corner and on exposing Manchester United's weakness from set-pieces he said: "We do a lot of work in general on set pieces but we felt there was an area where we could get something and congratulations to Lotte and the guys on the coaching staff. They did a lot of work in the week on blocking and giving Lotte the opportunity to go at goal and she did really well."