Galton cements star status at Manchester United, rampaging Foord takes centre stage for Arsenal and Fishlock is flyingWith Chelsea’s match against Tottenham one of two WSL games postponed because of Covid outbreaks – and another falling foul of a waterlogged pitch – Manchester United extended their lead at the top by thrashing the division’s bottom team, Bristol City, 6-1. There were another two goals for Leah Galton, who is absolutely on fire and enjoying playing higher up on the left. Though the US internationals Tobin Heath and Christen Press got a lot of the attention when they arrived in the summer, Galton has come in and undoubtedly been their star of the season so far. Bristol were resolute in the...
The Chelsea midfielder reflects on last season’s title and how the arrival of more top players is raising the barI will definitely never forget my first Women’s Super League title. My Chelsea teammates and I were asked to join a Zoom call so I logged in from Norway during a camping trip. Emma Hayes came on and, all of a sudden, popped open a bottle of champagne: “We’ve won the league!” It felt so weird to find out we had won it on points per game and, although it was a fantastic reward for all our work, I hope we don’t have to celebrate that way again.We want to repeat the trick in front of our fans, but first we...
Arsenal face Chelsea on Saturday with both sides desperate to get their hands on silverware amid a pile of intriguing subplotsArsenal face Chelsea in the Continental Cup final on Saturday evening in what should be a fascinating conclusion to a sometimes maligned competition. Earlier this season Emma Hayes, the Chelsea manager, said she wanted to get rid of it completely, and this week she said it was the trophy her team most want to win – and I expect she’ll be delighted if her side take the title for the first time.Chelsea certainly go into the game with the upper hand. Arsenal have lost only four league games since the start of 2019 and three were to Chelsea. In October...
Prospect of two great players at rival clubs pushing each other is just one cause for excitement about women’s football in 2020Friday is the day that Sam Kerr officially joins Chelsea as the mid-season transfer window opens, the arrival of the player I consider the best No 9 in the world ending an amazing year for women’s football.It has been a year of massive forward strides. The World Cup obviously was huge, and Megan Rapinoe brought positive attention to the women’s game by being brave and speaking about important issues while also doing her talking on the pitch, and there have been big signings, and groundbreaking sponsorship and broadcasting deals. Meanwhile clubs playing in men’s stadiums has become normalised and...
Arsenal are back on top of the table but victory over West Ham papered over defensive issues while Chelsea are back in formArsenal shot back to the top of the league with a 4-2 win over West Ham, but this was a far from perfect performance. The teams went into half-time at 2-2, and the leaders were then given what their usually mild-mannered manager, Joe Montemurro, described as their biggest telling-off of the season. He spent much of the last two weeks training against long balls and set pieces, only to watch his side twice fail to deal with long kicks from the West Ham goalkeeper, Becky Spencer, which released the Swiss forward Alisha Lehmann to set up Scotland’s Jane...