Reigning Barclays Women’s Super League (BWSL) champions and top of the table, Manchester City have rarely had it this good on a visit to Chelsea.
How they would have loved to put their feet up on the couch and get comfortable. Unfortunately, wearing a crown you’ve so coveted comes with no respite, especially when Chelsea are breathing down your neck, two points behind in second place, bent on getting it back.
The game fizzed in the first half as both sides threatened each other’s goal. With each team latching on man-to-man when the other built from the back, there was plenty of real estate to navigate in between the lines whenever the press was broken through. All-in on the press, Sonia Bompastor and Andrée Jeglertz had to accept the vulnerability to balls over the top.
Bompastor had Sandy Baltimore playing as a second striker and roaming during build up to lure City centre-backs Jade Rose and Rebecca Knaak into uncomfortable areas. Likewise, Aoba Fujino was tasked with pulling Chelsea’s Lucy Bronze and Kadeisha Buchanan out of position. These rotations were designed to give the two number nines on both sides, Melvine Malard for Chelsea and Bunny Shaw for City, more room to run in behind.
Within the first four minutes, Chelsea and City reaped the benefits and bore the consequences of their audacious tactics. City carved out the first real big chance when Lauren Hemp found Shaw zooming past a sleeping Buchanan in the half-space. Her cutback slithered to Fujino’s feet, but the Japanese attacker skewed it wide while Chelsea keeper Hannah Hampton stood frozen.
Almost immediately, a ball over the top pitted Malard against Rose. Chelsea’s number nine jostled her way into the box while City’s backline scrambled backwards, only for Alyssa Thompson to sky a loose but perfectly teed-up ball.
We were treated to a basketball affair in the first half as both teams pressed intensely and attacked gaping spaces quickly. However, Chelsea managed three shots in the box to City’s one before the break, as the Blues were more resolute and successful in resisting their opponent’s attempts to play out.
Sandy Baltimore provided the sparkle the game was crying out for in the fourth minute of first-half injury time. Ellie Carpenter and Wieke Kaptein swarmed Yui Hasegawa near the touchline to win the ball back high up. Baltimore, who had been anticipating a cross in front of goal, drifted into the half-space unmarked. Fed by Carpenter, she lined up for the mother of all deadlock-breaking shots. There’s no reality where City keeper Ayaka Yamashita keeps that out.
This match proved to be one of Bompastor’s finest displays of game management, particularly in making bold substitutions. While an early swap of Melvine Malard for Aggie Beever-Jones was forced by a hamstring injury, taking off Buchanan for Veerle Buurman and Baltimore for Maika Hamano was far more calculated.
Regarding Buchanan, Bompastor said, “I just felt watching her from the beginning of the game, she was not herself… and I took the responsibility to make the substitution.”
She also clarified the reasoning behind Baltimore’s half-time withdrawal: “We knew going into the second half, we had just one slot [after taking off Malard and Buchanan] and we knew Sandy has been playing a lot of minutes for us and probably she didn’t have in this game the legs to go for more than 60 [minutes].”
Both substitutions paid off. Bunny Shaw had been having her way with Buchanan in the opening ten minutes. Afterwards, she was constantly drowned by a sea of blue shirts led by Buurman. The 20-year-old Dutch defender capped her performance with the Player of the Match award. Meanwhile, Hamano’s energy enabled Chelsea to keep buzzing in defence and attack.
In the 64th minute, City played through Chelsea’s press after a long spell without a clear chance. Shaw laid it on a plate for Hemp after flicking the ball over Hampton, but City’s number 11 missed a sitter. Following the miss, City had a new lease of life as they grew into the game, but their momentum was stopped in its tracks by a moment of madness from Yamashita. Charging out of goal to sweep up a ball in behind, the City keeper sliced down Alyssa Thompson, earning a straight red in the 75th minute.
Despite being a player down, City maintained their press and direct attacks as they pushed for an equaliser. Chelsea were afforded transitions as a result but failed to find a second.
Had Fujino put away her chance in the fourth minute or Hemp hers in the 64th, it would have been a different story. Instead, Chelsea came out on top with a performance built on an unwavering defence, inspired substitutions and a Sandy screamer.
“Rollercoasters!” Bompastor interjected with a twinkle in her eye as a journalist described the state of the game in the post-match press conference. In the BWSL, there’s barely room to catch your breath. But if Chelsea can ride it out till May, this frantic afternoon will have been worth every emotion.
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