Arsenal Women 3-1 Chelsea Women
Chelsea Women have to dust themselves off, regroup and rebound after a humbling defeat by Arsenal Women in last weekend's League Cup final at Selhurst Park.
The Gunners did to Chelsea what the Blues usually do to the teams they play week in, week out... dominate, keep the ball and hustle.
But there's no time for dejection as Chelsea have two quickfire league matches this week, with Brighton and then Manchester United visiting Kingsmeadow.
Yet it all started so brightly in the cup final. The Blues utterly bossed the first minute and a half, with Guro Reiten lofting the perfect cross into the box for Sam Kerr to power a header home off the underside of the crossbar.
But from then until the final whistle, it was all Arsenal. The Gunners harried and hassled Chelsea, never letting the players settle, denying them space to create and darting forward with real menace at every opportunity.
Packed house
With a quarter of an hour gone at a packed Crystal Palace ground (the final tally was just over 19,000), Stina Blackstenius slotted home after a quickly taken free kick left the Blues' defence struggling to get back into position.
On 23 minutes, Sophie Ingle's rash tackle on Katie McCabe in the area gave Arsenal a penalty, which Kim Little despatched, sending Ann-Katrin Berger diving in the opposite direction.
And just before the break Niamh Charles scored an own goal from an Arsenal corner (the Reds' fourth of the half), inadvertently heading in while trying to head clear.
By then, Emma Hayes had responded to the threat by taking off Jelena Cankovic and putting on Kadeisha Buchanan, reverting to three in defence to try to beef up the midfield and carve out more scoring opportunities.
But this was just a bad – a very bad – day at the office for a Chelsea Women team that are so used to winning it comes as quite a shock to realise they're human after all.
Mysteriously, it was exactly the same starting XI that the Chelsea manager had fielded to knock Arsenal out of the FA Cup the previous weekend.
Lauren James was too often closed down and lacked her usual adventurous sparkle. But this win was really down to Arsenal's skill and passion – qualities Chelsea simply couldn't match.
“Everything has to be top class, and today it was not at Chelsea's standard,” admitted Hayes at the end. “Sometimes you have to lose games like this to be reminded.”
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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