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Six second-half goals gave Manchester City an emphatic third straight win in the Women’s Super League at Brighton.

Georgia Stanway made it 3-0 before Laura Coombs capitalised on a defensive mistake for a fourth in seven minutes.

Goals from Hayley Raso and Vicky Losada extended the lead to see City swap places with Brighton to move fifth in the table.

City manager Gareth Taylor told BBC Sport: “We’re targeting the very top, as always. When you work at a club like City that’s the aim.

“We suffered early on in the season – there’s no secret about that – with the amount of players we had missing.

“We’re making steady progress now, but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. We need to back these type of performances with another one.”

City were bolstered by the presence of Lucy Bronze in the starting line-up, the England defender playing for the first time this season following knee surgery.

England captain Steph Houghton also came off the substitute’s bench for her first appearance since September.

Hemp celebrates new deal with starring role

Forward Hemp, who had recently signed a new two-year contract, was instrumental in her side’s performance.

Taylor added: “One of the messages I said at half-time was get the ball to Lauren as much as we can because you could see she was really at it today.

“She brings such energy and directness to the team. Sometimes we overuse her a little bit. She’s great and we’re really glad to have her.”

Hemp was involved in the first goal when her low cross was diverted into the bottom corner by Williams. The 21-year-old then cut in off the left wing to chip the ball over Brighton goalkeeper Megan Walsh for her fifth goal of the season.

Stanway latched onto a blocked shot of her own to shoot home from inside the area for the third and Coombs fired in from long range after Brighton defender Danielle Bowman gave the ball away to make it 4-0 to City inside the first 10 minutes of the second half.

Raso went one-on-one with Walsh to make it 5-0 to City and Losada’s deflected chip from the edge of the area capped a resounding win for Gareth Taylor’s side.