Man City upset Chelsea to draw level on points at top of WSL

Chelsea 0 Manchester City 1

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor praised his team’s “newfound determination” after they upset leaders Chelsea with a rare win at Kingsmeadow to move level with the defending champions and throw the Women’s Super League title race wide open.

Manchester City had not won an away league fixture against Chelsea on any ground since 2016, the year when City last lifted the title, but Jamaica striker Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw 14th league goal in 13 appearances this term was enough to earn them a pivotal win as they dug in defensively late on.

Despite the significance of the result, Taylor wasn’t entirely satisfied, saying: “Second half, we can play so much better than that. Our ball retention was horrible. We played the occasion a little bit, but, no criticism, we have to give players great credit for the way they handled things.

“We are really, really determined this season. In the past our performances have been quite good, in certain games we’ve lost or drawn, but we’ve probably been a bit soft in those moments, defensively. Whereas, now, I just think there is this new found determination between the team.”

This was Taylor’s team’s 11th consecutive victory in all competitions and simultaneously ended Chelsea’s 22-game winning run in home WSL fixtures, which was the longest home-game-winning run in this league’s 13-year history.

The game’s crucial moment came when England’s Jess Park dispossessed Scotland’s Erin Cuthbert inside Chelsea’s half and then Park slipped the ball into the path of Shaw to give the visitors a lead they would not relinquish.

The visitors were fortunate not to concede a penalty when Alex Greenwood appeared to bring down Chelsea’s British-record signing Mayra Ramirez. However, the away fans probably felt it was some late form of justice for Greenwood after her controversial and unusual sending off for ‘time-wasting’ in the first half of October’s reverse league fixture between these two sides, which saw Chelsea equalise in the 96th minute when City only had eight players on the pitch.

There was no such stoppage-time drama on Friday because Manchester City goalkeeper Khiara Keating Keating produced a match-winning save to keep out Jelena Cankovic’s half-volley and then Sjoeke Nusken’s rebound. Chelsea manager Emma Hayes labelled that double save as “unbelievable”.

The defeat will be a blow to Chelsea’s chances of winning not only a fourth consecutive WSL title but also potentially a quadruple of major trophies this term, in Hayes’ final season in charge. She insisted she is not yet looking at the league table and added: “A draw would have been a fair result, but that’s not football, is it? It’s about taking your chances. They got one really big one and took it. We got one, maybe two big chances, and didn’t take them, and didn’t get a penalty, that’s the story of the game.”

Chelsea remain top of the table, ahead of Manchester City only on goals scored, but this result will also have given renewed hope to third-placed Arsenal, who host fourth-placed Manchester United at a sold-out Emirates Stadium on Saturday. Arsenal are six points behind but now have a game in hand, and they have matches still to come away against both of the top two.

Match details

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Hampton 6; Lawrence 6 (Nusken 6, 72), Carter 6, Bjorn 6, Charles 6; Leupolz 6 (Cankovic 7, 79), Cuthbert 5; Kirby 6 (Rytting Kaneryd 6, 63), James 6, Reiten 6 (Beever-Jones 6, 63); Ramirez 6
Subs not used: Musovic (gk), Ingle, Perisset, Mjelde, Buchanan
Yellow cards: Cuthbert, James
Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Keating 8; Casparij 7, Aleixandri 7, Greenwood 6, Ouahabi 6; Hasegawa 6, Coombs 6 (Stokes 6, 90+4); Kelly 6 (Angeldahl 7, 79), Park 7 (Fowler 6, 90), Hemp 7; Shaw 7
Subs not used: Morgan, Blindkilde Brown, MacIver (gk), Mace, Kennedy
Yellow cards: Kelly
Referee: Abigail Byrne (Suffolk)
Attendance: TBC