The Japan international collected the most votes for her acrobatic save in City’s 5-1 win over Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium.
Andrée Jeglertz’s side would go onto cruise to the memorable victory thanks to a Kerolin hat-trick plus further goals from Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw and Vivianne Miedema.
Brazilian, Kerolin, had given the Blues an early lead, but following the opener, Chelsea began to push for an equaliser and applied plenty of pressure in the final third.
And Yamashita was called into action just after the hour mark with Erin Cuthbert’s strike looking certain to sneak under the crossbar, until our goalkeeper acrobatically tipped it over to keep it at 1-0.
It would prove to be a vital save as Shaw doubled our advantage soon after before we scored three more after half-time.
Yamashita overcame Leicester’s Olivia Clark, Everton’s Courtney Brosnan and Liverpool’s Jennifer Falk to the accolade.
Congratulations to Ayaka on this award!
