Aston Villa WFC 0-6 Chelsea FCW, Women’s Super League: Post-match reaction

Although Aston Villa Women have yet to pick up a single point in the Women’s Super League this season, they still managed to sell some of their losses at a high cost to their opponents. The first minutes of the match, where the hosts produced a great goalscoring in Chelsea’s area only for Rachel Daly to shoot it well over the crossbar, almost made that happen.

That served as a wake-up call to Chelsea, who proceeded to dominate every area of the pitch as they usually do. But once again a world-class performance from a goalkeeper stopped us from turning the first half into an all-out onslaught in our favour.

So incessantly we tried to score that eventually the ball would squeeze its way into the back of shot-stopper Daphne van Domselaar’s net. Captain Millie Bright would open the score for us with a routine volley for her after a short corner kick routine.

With the floodgates now opened, even if for a brief period of time, Chelsea had to make the most out of the opportunity. Fran Kirby, who’s more than used to facing tough goalkeepers, would be the one to grab it.

Chelsea had no incentive to take their foot off the gas pedal, and they continued to invade Aston Villa’s area with as many bodies as they could to get more goals. However Van Domselaar was still in tune, and the hosts themselves were not afraid to counter overloads with getting a line of players to block shots in front of the goal.

The second half almost started in the best way possible, with Fran Kirby scoring a goal. But her effort was deemed offside and Rachel Daly almost successfully answered the attempt at the other side in a matter of seconds.

Thus the Blues were ought to keep pushing for more goals. Funnily enough the third came out of Erin Cuthbert recovering possession in midfield without even noticing, and with Johanna Rytting Kaneryd running towards Aston Villa’s area to score her first goal of the season.

It seems Van Domselaar finally got tired of jumping all over the area as there was little support from inline players to stop Chelsea from creating so many chances. The Blues would certainly not let the opportunity go to waste as shown by the several goals we scored after that.

The fourth was an all-Canadian connection, with Jessie Fleming assisting Ashley Lawrence for her first ever Chelsea goal.

Then Jelena Cankovic played a great pass to Aggie Beever-Jones, with the young attacker keeping things simple to score her second ever Chelsea goal as a first-team player.

And Niamh Charles also got herself in the scoresheet, freely volleying a ball into the back of the net.

Carefree!

• Emma opting for a bit of rotation even though Chelsea have no midweek matches. Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, Jessie Fleming and Mia Fishel get a chance to prove themselves upfront, while Erin Cuthbert joins Sjoeke Nüsken in midfield.
• Subs are Aggie Beever-Jones for Mia Fishel, Ashley Lawrence for Fran Kirby, Jelena Cankovic for Erin Cuthbert, Maren Mjelde for Ève Périsset, and Kadeisha Buchanan for Millie Bright.
• Niamh Charles simply can’t stop impressing us this season.
• Fran Kirby is definitely back. Beyond the goal, she got several shots on target and created many of our best chances to score in the first half of the match.
• The Sjoeke Nüsken-Erin Cuthbert midfield pairing already looks stellar.
• Ashley Lawrence complementing a good substitute cameo with her first ever Chelsea goal.
• Aggie Beever-Jones was supposed to be the future. But it seems she’s intent on being the present for Chelsea.
• Today’s scoreline puts us five goals ahead of Manchester City in goal difference at least until Sunday, when they face Arsenal away in the league.
• Next up: Everton away in the Women’s Super League.
• KTBFFH!