Last updated on .From the section Women's Football

Steph Houghton grabbed City's second goal and was rarely called on in defence, with Reading managing just one shot in the entire match

Jennnifer Beattie and Steph Houghton scored as Manchester City briefly stretched their lead at the top of the Women's Super League to 13 points with a patient victory over winless Reading.

Second-placed Chelsea closed the gap back to 10 points with a 4-0 thrashing of Birmingham City Ladies.

City dominated a scoreless first half against Reading but had to wait until Beattie's second-half header to lead.

Houghton's classy late free-kick found the bottom corner to make it 2-0.

The victory was well deserved but the visitors restricted City's opportunities in the first period, with Jane Ross going closest when her shot hit the bar.

However, Beattie eased any fears of dropping points when she converted Toni Duggan's free-kick soon after the restart, and fellow centre-back Houghton wrapped up victory with two minutes remaining.

City have three league matches left, including one against Chelsea. Even if they lose to the London side, City need only two wins to be certain of clinching the league title.

Manchester City defender Jennifer Beattie:

"I know the feeling of having won the league and I want that to happen with this club. It's a brilliant club and we want titles, and we want silverware. Hopefully experience will help.

"The best thing is that we're still not happy; we still think we can get better.

"We've scored twice from set pieces but we want to be scoring from open play too. We've got the quality there but it's just about making it happen in the final third."

Reading defender Molly Bartrip:

"It's difficult to be sat back in your own half, but you come away to teams like Manchester City and you expect that.

"We knew what we had to do to stop them getting through us. We executed it really well, it was just two silly set pieces.

"I think if you look at both games between the two teams, we have matched them both times. It's little mistakes that are costing us the game."

Jennifer Beattie's header for the opening goal was one of 21 shots Man City managed