City are turning the WSL into a procession and nobody looks ready to stop them

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The palace walls came tumbling down

Four points from two games and two clean sheets. Jo Potter must have thought she had cracked the code. Crystal Palace were supposed to be the WSL's surprise package this season - compact, stubborn, genuinely awkward to play against.

Then Tottenham happened.

The reality check Palace needed

Seven-nil. Seven. Let that settle for a moment. Olivia Holdt helped herself to a hat-trick as Spurs dismantled Palace with a ruthlessness that bordered on cruel. Potter's side, who had kept Arsenal at bay only a week or so earlier, simply fell apart.

And that is the story of matchweek three in the WSL. Not just the Palace capitulation, but the widening gulf between teams who genuinely belong at the top table and those still pulling up a chair.

The evidence is stacking up

Manchester City thumped Liverpool 4-2, with Lauren Hemp scoring twice and looking every inch a player who has decided this is her season. Arsenal needed a 95th-minute Smilla Holmberg equaliser just to scrape a draw at home to Manchester United. Chelsea dispatched Birmingham 2-0 without breaking sweat. Spurs put seven past Palace.

City now lead the WSL by five points. Five. After three games. That is not a gap - it is a statement. Alex Greenwood talked before the weekend about the difference between being winners and being champions. Right now, nobody else in the division is even asking that question.

The fair counter-argument is obvious: three matches is nothing. Injuries, European commitments, the relentless grind of a full calendar - all of these things compress the table eventually. Arsenal still have the squad depth to mount a challenge once they find their rhythm. Chelsea remain clinical enough to reel off a run of wins without anyone noticing until it is too late.

But City look different this time

What struck me about Friday's win was not the scoreline but the manner. Liverpool actually led. They were bright, aggressive, briefly brilliant. And City simply absorbed the punch and hit back harder. Khadija Shaw equalised, Grace Fisk gifted them the lead with an own goal, and Hemp killed the game in stoppage time. It was the response of a team that expects to win, not one that hopes to.

Andree Jeglertz has refined rather than revolutionised, and that is smart management. The foundations were already there. He has just tightened the screws.

Meanwhile, Palace's seven-goal mauling and Arsenal's last-gasp scramble tell us something uncomfortable: the gap between the WSL's top tier and the rest is growing, not shrinking. Promoted sides and mid-table clubs can have their moments, but when the quality comes, it comes in waves.

Three matchweeks in, and the WSL already has a pecking order. The question is whether anyone has the nerve - or the quality - to disrupt it before City turn a five-point cushion into something uncatchable.