Chelsea Win The Subway Women's League Cup
Some thoughts on the Subway Women's League Cup which Chelsea won at Pride Park as they beat Manchester City by two goals to one.
The first piece of silverware for this season goes to Chelsea after they beat Manchester City 2-1 in the Subway Women’s League Cup final at Pride Park in Derby. A 26th victory this season in all competitions for them this season out of 28 games and it means a potential opportunity of winning the quadruple remains for the club.
Going through the game, it all started in the 8th minute with Mayra Ramirez making it 1-0 as she was put through on goal by Lauren James and then maybe got a bit fortunate as Ayaka Yamashita saved the original chance, however it rebounded back off Laia Aleixandri and then Ramirez was able to just tap it in to give Chelsea the lead.
For a lot of the first half, Manchester City were having a lot of the possession but not taking their chances, which has been a trend of their season in recent weeks. It felt like they were trying to score this perfect goal at times and it was made a lot more difficult by a top-class performance from Chelsea’s defence, namely the centre-back pairing of Millie Bright and Nathalie Björn. Mayra Ramirez also had a chance to double the Chelsea lead as well when she rounded the keeper, but ended up hitting the side-netting.
In the second half, Chelsea were regaining a bit more control of the game until City ended up finally getting a breakthrough with a rocket of a strike from Aoba Fujino whose shot appeared to catch out Hannah Hampton in the Chelsea goal.
It was a catalyst for Manchester City to continue to keep the momentum of the game in their favour, however in the 77th minute, a lot of work down that right side from Chelsea players led to Mayra Ramirez putting a cross in which looked like it would be dealt with by Man City’s Yui Hasegawa but cruelly, the ball has flicked it’s way into the net restoring Chelsea’s lead and it ended up being the final big moment of the game as well as Sonia Bompastor’s side held out to win the trophy.
Sonia Bompastor’s first trophy as Chelsea manager!
As said at the start, 26 wins out of 28 games in all comps for Chelsea this season and what a first season it has been for Sonia Bompastor in England. One trophy is in the bag, another one looks very likely with the WSL title and then there is the FA Cup and Champions League still to fight for too.
How much her team celebrate this one has been talked about with the Chelsea boss being asked about it in the aftermath, going as far as saying that they should be in bed by 9:30 pm. How they will have to be ready for Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final, which is also against Manchester City in the second of the four matches the two teams have versus each other.
When the final whistle went, it also felt like celebrations were not massively jubilant, whether that was just relief for the game to be over with or a feeling that they perhaps got away with it due to City not taking their opportunities. There was some dancing in front of the fans once they had the trophy in their hands and collected their medals however, so you expect some celebrations in the Chelsea camp even if there’s more of an eye on what is to come in the next few weeks.
This unbelievable run for Chelsea though goes on and Bompastor’s team managed this game very well for large parts even with moments where it did feel like they were making it a little bit tough for themselves.
There was almost this sense that they were happy to defend the game at times, which they were doing so resiliently for a lot of it with players putting their bodies on the line throughout, and I did mention the performances of Millie Bright and Nathalie Björn, but somebody else I have to mention is Sjoeke Nüsken. It isn’t the first time we have seen her prove to be so good all over the pitch, but here today it felt like she was everywhere.
Not the dream return for Nick Cushing
The challenge was always evident for Nick Cushing in his first game back at Manchester City as interim manager, and to take charge of the team in a cup final for his first game back. Well there certainly aren’t more difficult tasks, especially when it is up against a team that hasn’t lost a single game all season.
In terms of Man City’s performance, it did look like there was a bit more intensity to how they were playing even though the actual style of play never looked too different from what we have been seeing from them this season. A lot of times they had to get the ball out wide to try and get things going because of their efforts on goal always being thwarted by blocks from Chelsea defenders.
Ultimately, City’s defending and how they worked in transitions cost them again, plus the manner of the two goals they conceded will be a talking point as well given there were two unfortunate errors that led to them. Certainly a case of ‘how’s your luck?’ when the ball rebounds off Aleixandri to lead to the first and then the second inadvertently goes into the goal off Hasegawa.
They will certainly be looking to respond on Wednesday in the Women’s Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea and now they will be aware of what they are up against, so how they prepare for that one is something for Nick Cushing to think about. He’ll be hoping that his team can bounce back accordingly over these next few games.
What was this pitch at Pride Park?
The moment this game kicked off you could see one thing that was obvious to everybody watching it. The pitch at Pride Park was in a pretty bad state. It looked very bobbly and clearly had a lot of sand put onto it to salvage it especially in that one corner which was quite frankly not something you expect to be seeing for a major cup final.
Last year, when the final was at Molineux, we saw great conditions with the pitch and maybe that is because of the Premier League standards of being able to keep the pitch to a good standard. But even with that in mind, Pride Park’s playing surface was not at the standard required. Or ‘Sub-standard’ if you’d like. (I’ll see myself out..)
There were a lot of comments regarding the pitch on social media and from Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor as well.
"It is a shame to have this pitch for a final, especially when you expect in England to have the best groundsmen and pitches in the world. I’m not sure again if it was a men’s final game if it would be the same." - Sonia Bompastor
"The standard of this pitch has been sub-standard, not befitting of a Women's League Cup final. There's a lot of sand on it." - Rachel Brown-Finnis on BBC co-comms
A crowd of 14,187 is also down on the record attendance of last year’s final as well and that will quite possibly bring about a discussion around whether the time and location of the game for this year was the right call also.