Erin Cuthbert was the hero as her stoppage-time header secured a 2-1 win over Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium to give The Blues a vice-like grip on the Women's Super League title race. Viviane Asseyi's last-minute free kick and an own goal gave West Ham United an impressive victory over Tottenham Hotspur, their London rivals. Reigning Women’s Super League champions Chelsea re-established their stranglehold on the title race after recovering from a goal down to claim a 2-1 win at Manchester City.
Sonia Bompastor's team took a eight-point lead over Arsenal with Erin Cuthbert's late winner, leaving City seven points behind the top three. During the relatively tense opening period, the league leaders had few chances. Oriane Jean-Francois made an ambitious attempt to alter the situation from the edge of the box, but it went over the bar. Chelsea were indebted to Lucy Bronze for some excellent defending just before the half-hour mark. With Vivianne Miedema waiting in the middle, the England defender made an excellent intervention by directing Kerolin's cross away from danger. However, it was only a brief respite for the visitors, who went ahead after 32 minutes when the vivacious Kerolin broke free down the right and weaved her way into the box before pausing and slamming her finish into the bottom-left corner. Cushing is dissatisfied that Chelsea did not take a 2-0 lead at halftime, noting that he was bringing key players off as Chelsea brought them on. Before the disallowed goal, he’d asked the fourth official for advantage and been advised the message would be passed on to the ref … who then failed so to do. Aside from that, he thinks his team did a good job of defense in the second half, despite not playing their football, and he is extremely pleased with Keating's performance, saying she has more than enough to be the team's top player. He thinks there’ll be large parts of Thursday’s game that look like the second half today, with City under pressure, but they’ll go looking to score with the confidence that they can play as they did in the first half.
BBC hears from Cuthbert that they lacked grit and assertiveness in the first half. But a tactical change saw them limit the influence of Kerolin, which they had to go.
On the winner, she says she’s challenged herself to get into the box more and decided that head, shoulder, whatever, she wanted to be first and was determined to take everything into the net if necessary.
She sees herself as a box-to-box midfielder, she couldn’t have a better coach for that than Camille Abily. She also believes that Walsh has given them a new dimension, and even though they haven't had much fluidity in the final third, they are getting there, and in the meantime, they are finding ways to win. They must score goals on Thursday, and an early goal completely changes the outcome of the tie. They’ll need to play a perfect game but if there’s one thing she knows about Chelsea, it’s that they can do it.
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Erin Cuthbert was the hero as her stoppage-time header secured a 2-1 win over Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium to give The Blues a vice-like grip on the Women's Super League title race. Viviane Asseyi's last-minute free kick and an own goal gave West Ham United an impressive victory over Tottenham Hotspur, their London rivals. Reigning Women’s Super League champions Chelsea re-established their stranglehold on the title race after recovering from a goal down to claim a 2-1 win at Manchester City.
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