Arsenal condemned a broken Leicester to a bottom-place finish in the WSL and kept the pressure on Manchester City at the top with a dominant win. Two goals each from Sweden’s Smilla Holmberg and Stina Blackstenius and one apiece from Frida Maanum, Mariona Caldentey and Leah Williamson, helped Arsenal reduce their goal-difference deficit with the league leaders from 13 to six.

The Gunners had three games in hand going into the match and with City having lost against Brighton on Saturday, the door opened a crack for Arsenal. City need to win their final two games or win one and draw one while maintaining their superior goal difference to lift their first league title in 10 years.

Renée Slegers made five changes to the team that earned an impressive 2-1 win over Lyonnes in the Champions League semi-final first leg on Sunday, leaning on her squad to produce a result and ensure legs were rested.

Injury-hit Leicester made three changes to the side that suffered a 5-1 defeat to London City Lionesses. It was always going to be a near-impossible task to escape a 12th-place finish, particularly with Chelsea up next on Sunday, and they predictably struggled against a team that has a 100% win rate against them.

The small silver lining to finishing bottom before the league’s expansion to 14 teams is that they still have a chance of staying up via a playoff against the team that finishes third in WSL2.

It was efficient and clinical from the home team and you could not help but feel for Leicester as goal after goal went in. Arsenal had no room to ease off though, they needed to keep pressing for goals and they did so with a cold determination that at times felt cruel. That the visiting team held them at bay for 25 minutes will provide little solace, but in the context of the following 65 minutes it was a fairly impressive feat.

Maanum broke the deadlock, the Norwegian midfielder sending in a looping header from Taylor Hinds’s ball. Arsenal were rampant. Holmberg’s first goal for the Gunners came two minutes later when Maanum picked her out and she took a touch before firing past Olivia Clark.

The third and fourth arrived shortly before the break and Blackstenius was the scorer of both, heading in from Maanum’s clipped pass for the first and turning into the empty net from close range for her second after Clark came out to meet Victoria Pelova and the Dutch international poked the ball across to the Swede.

Leicester visible sagged after the fourth, the players looked utterly deflated. Clark was involved in a clash of heads and was swapped off for Katie Keane for the second half but there was no respite after the break with Williamson, Caldentey, Russo and Foord all coming on as substitutes in the space of six minutes for the home team.

Holmberg bagged her second three minutes after the restart, Pelova swinging the ball to the back post for her to nod in, Caldentey scored the sixth, sweeping in from the edge of the area and a rocket of a header from a corner from Williamson produced the seventh.

Arsenal could have had more, but Keane made a couple of good saves to maintain the seven-goal deficit. Up the other end substitute Noémie Mouchon almost pulled one back in the rarest of forays out of the Leicester half when she fired narrowly wide of the far post from the right with eight minutes remaining.

Leicester have to somehow pick themselves up, get through another probable bruising encounter with Chelsea and aim to take something against Everton to lift spirits before the critical playoff game.

Meanwhile, Arsenal march on, with their Champions League second leg up next and their form in the second half of the season again leaves them rueing a poor start to the campaign.