Chelsea Women Top the WSL Table at Stamford Bridge
By Sophie Ferran
Chelsea Women continued their unbeaten run to top the WSL table, after beating Tottenham Hotspur Women 3-0 at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea manager Emma Hayes returned to the dugout after 6 weeks away due to surgery with bright spirits.
The first 10 minutes of the match was very even with Tottenham coming out bright, with Drew Spence coming close to getting past Chelsea goalkeeper Ann- Kathrin Berger. Until Sam Kerr found the side netting early on to put Chelsea in the lead, leaving Tottenham panicked and becoming very defensive.
Image is licensed by Creative Commons, courtesy of Zakarie Faibis
Chelsea started to relax and began to dominate the game making it look easy. Erin Cuthbert doubled the blues lead, after Guro Reiten’s corner bounced to Cuthbert who brought the ball down before hitting the ball on the volley outside the 18- yard box. Chelsea continued to battle their way through Tottenham’s defence with many chances to clinch another. Tottenham continued to have individual mistakes, with Ashleigh Neville fouling Lauren James in the box and the referee pointed to the spot. Giving Chelsea a 3-0 lead at half time by Reiten.
In the second half Chelsea remained dominate with early chances to add to their advantage, but remained goalless. Tottenham came away lucky from Chelsea’s attacks and many chances being missed by the blues. Lauren James was a star player for Chelsea, being the spark of magic and making it hard for Tottenham to manage, showing the quality between the two sides. Overall, Tottenham gave a good performance, but looked out their depths playing a very experienced Champions League team. The win was significant for Chelsea due playing at home at Stamford Bridge and Hayes retuning pitch side as well as celebrating 10 years in charge.
There was an impressive turnout with record home crowd of 38,350 supporters for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Hayes said she would “like to be here more” when asked about playing at Stamford Bridge. With women’s football on the rise more big stadiums should be used as women’s team are outgrowing their home grounds as well as players wanting to play in front of more fans. Rehanne Skinner Tottenham Hotspur’s manger said those attendance should be “normalised” across the league.