Five games in and 0 points leave Carla Ward’s ladies sitting bottom of the Women’s Super League following a humiliating defeat to Chelsea at Bescott Stadium. The ladies saw themselves with a very difficult start to the season, facing Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea in their first 5 fixtures; points were always going to be hard to get.
Ward once again opted to make changes to her starting eleven as she dropped Adriana Leon and Rachel Corsie to the bench while Lucy Parker missed out through an ankle injury she picked up with England on international duty. Alisha Lehmann, Laura Blindkilde Brown and the previously suspended Kirsty Hanson returned to the starting line-up as Rachel Daly was named as captain over last season’s vice-captain Danielle Turner for the first time, with Villa starting more attacking than in the previous matches.
Villa started on the front foot with Daly and Hanson both having chances at goal but neither effort troubled Ann-Katrin Berger, the Chelsea goalkeeper. It then turned into a game of luck for Chelsea with every second ball falling at a blue foot and some questionable decisions from the referee.
Chelsea won a corner in the 21st minute with a Millie Bright header being cleared off the line by Daly before the ball fell back at the feet of the stand-in Lionesses captain to make it 0-1 to the current league champions. Chelsea then upped their game and doubled their lead just five minutes later through Fran Kirby following yet another defensive error from Villa.
For the remainder of the 1st half, Villa were pushing on more with Hanson and Maz Pacheco linking up well on the left side. Jordan Nobbs began to push further forward creating more of an attacking threat for Villa but they failed to find the final ball.
It was quickly becoming clear that it just wasn’t Villa’s day today, with Lehmann giving the ball away multiple times and the constantly changing defence not seeming to be able to work well together.
I expected changes at half-time but it wasn’t to be despite the team struggling to click. Chelsea came out even stronger in the second half with their third goal coming in the 56th minute from Johanna Ryting Kaneryd who made a run through the Villa defence without anyone seeming to make a challenge, all backing off the pacy winger.
It was at this point that the champions showed the strength they had on the bench with in-form forwards Ashley Lawrence and Aggie Beever Jones coming on in the 58th minute with the former making it 0-4 to the Blues just 5 minutes later. This led to another change from the visitors seeing Jelena Čanković coming on just 1 minute later and still no subs being made from Carla Ward.
Moments later, substitutes Čanković and Beever Jones linked up to make it 0-5 to the visitors.
It wasn’t until the 70th minute that Villa finally made any changes with Lehmann going off for Ebony Salmon who I have yet to see impress in a Villa shirt and my opinion one of our biggest attacking threats Nobbs going off for Corsie. This confused me as Ward opted for a defensive option, weakening our poor attacking threat even more.
The change didn’t work though with a blocked shot falling straight at the feet of the in-form Niamh Charles who fired home to make it 0-6 to Chelsea. Their performance clearly showed why they have been champions for the last 3 seasons and why they are constantly one of the top teams in the league. This scoreline gave them the confidence and opportunity to take off the reliable defender and captain Millie Bright for the final 15 minutes of the game.
Villa also made their final change taking off Lucy Staniforth and young midfielder Olivia McLoughlin coming on. The game slowly died off towards the end as the visitors took their foot off the gas and Villa only managed a measly two shots on target over the 90 minutes.
Analysis
I was very disappointed with the subs made in this game with positive forward Leon sitting on the bench, who has always looked exciting and a threat when she has played getting no minutes in this game. Also with the game already lost why wasn’t young forward Georgia Mullett given a chance and her first minutes of the season?
The first changes were made too late in the game and the wrong players were being introduced and taken off. Only four players looked remotely at the standard they should have been; Daly, Nobbs, Pacheco and the returning Hanson while others seemed to struggle with the pressure from the Champions.
Daly was all over the pitch making goal-line clearances, creating chances and sitting and winning the ball back in midfield so when we did attack she was rarely in the box where we needed her due to making a challenge somewhere else on the pitch. She was by far our best player in this game, but unless things change this season I am struggling to see her staying around in this team when she is the only one putting her body on the line every game and she isn’t getting much support from the rest of the team.
The team needs to start performing similarly to how they did last season and start getting results or Ward could be out of a job. Her tactics haven’t been there this season with the play being too predictable which makes it easier for the opposition to play against us, and constantly changing the defence isn’t helping any of them when the same back 4 played well together last season and were very positive with their play but this season seem very nervy.