Manchester City have taken the Women’s Super League title race down to the final day of the season after an emphatic 6-1 win over Bristol Academy. The result also meant that Bristol will be relegated, as long as the teams coming up from WSL2 meet the requisite criteria set by the league.

If City had failed to win this game, the FA Cup winners Chelsea could have secured their first league title with a game to spare with their 4-0 win over Liverpool, thus avoiding a potential repeat of last season, when they went into the final day three points clear of their nearest rivals but lost the title on goal difference.

However, City piled the pressure on to their title rivals, who were to kick off later in the afternoon, putting six goals past their doomed opponents. Jill Scott opened the scoring after collecting a knockdown from Natasha Harding, Izzy Christiansen doubled the advantage with a deflected effort before England’s Lucy Bronze made it 3-0 just before the break. Nikita Parris made it four shortly after the break, Caroline Weir pulled one back for Bristol before a Christiansen penalty and a Georgia Stanway effort rounded off the demolition and put City top of the table, albeit briefly.

Chelsea travelled to Liverpool later and secured the win that left the title in their own hands going into the final day, when they face Sunderland and City host Notts County, the team Chelsea beat in the FA Cup final in August. City’s emphatic victory had given them an advantage on goal difference too, but Chelsea’s quartet of goals from Eniola Aluko, Fran Kirby and Ji So-yun (2) put paid to that.

“We can only control what we can control,” Scott told the WSL website after City’s win. “There’s no point wasting energy looking at other teams’ goal difference and what they are all doing.

“We knew that goal difference was something we could control if we put the ball in the back of the net and thankfully we did that.

“The first-half performance wasn’t up to our standards. We managed to go in 3-0 up on the back of a performance that wasn’t really ourselves, then we came out second half and stepped things up. If we were to finish second that would guarantee Champions League football and that’s a massive progression from last season.”

Elsewhere, on Saturday Arsenal stretched their lead in third place with a 3-1 win away at Sunderland. Two goals from Chioma Ubogagu and a late one from Natalia Pablos Sanchón secured the win but Chelsea’s win over Liverpool ensured that Arsenal will not now be involved in the title race.

In WSL2 Doncaster Belles all but confirmed their promotion to the top flight, returning after they were demoted in 2013 as part of the league’s restructuring. Two goals from Courtney Sweetman-Kirk secured a 2-1 win over London Bees and sealed the Belles’ place in the top two, the other place taken by Reading. They beat Watford 3-1 with goals from Melissa Fletcher, Helen Ward and Rachel Rowe.

The two sides will scrap for the title on the final day. Their promotion is not quite rubber-stamped, as they must fulfil the licensing criteria as set by the league, but both clubs are confident they will.