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Women's Super League: City slickers sweep Chelsea aside
Andrew Gibney rounds up the action as Manchester City prove too powerful for the beaten FA Cup finalists
On Thursday night, the top two sides in the Women’s Super League went into battle. Both Chelsea Ladies and Manchester City Women started the game with 100% league records, something had to give.
Goals either side of the half from Demi Stokes and Jennifer Beattie made it six wins out of six for Nick Cushing’s team and Chelsea’s hangover from the FA Cup final defeat to Arsenal continues for another week.
"It's good to be at the top of the league, it was good to be there before the game, it means nothing really,” said Cushing after the game, trying to play down the result. “We have to play on Wednesday, then a bit of a break, but a lot of games after that.”
City went into the game well rested, with their last fixture the 6-0 thrashing of Doncaster Belles on May 8th, no surprise that Cushing named the exact same XI – but with the added bonus of Izzy Christiansen and Megan Campbell back on the bench after injury.
On the other side, Emma Hayes made four changes from the side that lost 1-0 to Arsenal on Saturday. Eni Aluko, Beth England, Claire Rafferty and Niamh Fahey all coming in. The Chelsea boss also juggled her tactics around, moving Drew Spence from midfield enforcer to centre-forward.
In contrast to the line-ups that saw them win four from four and score 14 goals, Gemma Davison, Karen Carney and Ji So-yun dropped to the bench.
Both teams had their chances, but it was the away side that got the breakthrough on the stroke of half-time. Chelsea lost the ball in midfield, Kosovare Asllani slipped in left-back Demi Stokes and the England international fired the ball into the bottom corner.
Hayes’ teamtalk went out the window just three minutes after the restart when Jennifer Beattie made space at the back post before heading in Asllani’s corner-kick. Chelsea ‘keeper, Hedvig Lindahl was caught in no-man’s land and couldn’t get a strong hand on the cross or Beattie’s header.
Chelsea’s week was summed up perfectly when Davison picked out fellow substitute Ji unmarked in the centre of the City box, but the Koreans shot smashed the crossbar and bounced out. Replays, despite what Hayes said after the match, showed that the ball didn’t cross the line.
"We've had two or three fantastic chances to go ahead in the game and don't,” said Hayes. “Then at 2-0, Ji's shot hits the underside of the bar, from what I'm told it crossed the line and that's the difference.”
City maintain their 100% record of six wins from six, they move six point clear of Chelsea, but have played a game more. They have still yet to concede a goal in the league and will now be heavy favourites to lift their first WSL title.
“I'll keep playing it down, I'll keep saying it,” continued Cushing. “Our target is to keep winning and see what happens."
Chelsea hadn’t lost in the league since July 2015, now they have lost two-in-a-row and it’s up to Hayes to pick them up before the next fixture. “The players are disappointed, but there's still a long way to go, we've got Sunderland next week and we'll get ready for that."
The other game on Thursday night saw Birmingham City Ladies and Reading Women play out a rather uninspiring 0-0 draw. David Parker called the home side’s first-half performance, woeful, but the Blues could have snatched all three points at the end when Freda Ayisi’s header flashed past the far post with 16 minutes to go.
On Wednesday, Liverpool travelled to the Hetton Centre to take on Sunderland Ladies, with both teams desperately needing the three points to get their season on track and it was the visitors that came out the blocks flying.
Rosie White’s excellent finish put Scott Roger’s team 1-0 up, then Natasha Harding was brought down before half-time, letting Alex Greenwood double the lead before the break. Harding again was involved in the third, charging down the right win with blistering pace before her cross was turned into her own net by Stephanie Bannon.
With the result out of site, substitute Shanice van de Sanden picked out Katie Zelem with a neat cut-back, the young midfielder added the icing on the cake with her third of the season.
There are two games at the weekend, with Arsenal visiting Doncaster Belles on Saturday and Birmingham hosting Notts County on Sunday, then during the week, Manchester City play away at Liverpool and Chelsea welcome Sunderland to Staines before the WSL1 takes its summer break.
