Chelsea won because they were clinical, Arsenal lost because they weren’t. 2-1 says it all.
Normally when a team dominates like Arsenal did in the second half it’s cause for celebration. Even a loss is seen with rose-tainted glasses of being the better side. It wasn’t the case this time.
The Gunners repeated what they’ve done time and again, where possession just couldn’t translate into scoring opportunities. If it wasn’t for a dazzling individual effort from Caitlin Foord, it would’ve been even gloomier. Instead her goal just before the break gave false hope.
A side note for Matildas fans: Foord is back in form. She was the bright spot in the Gunners’ doom. Bombing down the left hand side, she will be in Lucy Bronze’s nightmares for sometime yet. For the goal she did what she does best, get to the byline to the drift past defenders and thread the ball through the eye of a needle. Glorious.
Calls for Jonas Eidevall to be sacked are growing and this result doesn’t help his case. The Dutchman being the first WSL coach to be sacked this season wasn’t on my bingo card, but if the unhappiness among fans is a gauge, his days are numbered.
Arsenal has a number of attacking talent to unleash, and creative players to boot. But they’ve not found the combination to breakdown any form of defence and create opportunities to scare goalkeepers.
There’s people who have been following this team closer than I have and for longer, who can pinpoint reasons why with more context and accuracy — so all I will say is it’s baffling that Arsenal with all their attacking power can’t make it work. And combinations and formations that clearly aren’t working continue to persist.
On the other side of the London derby are the Blues who under a new coach ground out a result in a game where they only fired sparingly. Mix a winning team with a winning coach in the former Lyon boss Sonia Bompastor and winning is only natural. That showed.
Chelsea will need to find another gear if they want to remain dominant on all fronts, but it’s still early days and they’ve had fewer competitive games than Arsenal or Man City having automatically qualified for Europe. For now, they’ve shown the grit to win dirty against Arsenal and Aston Villa. And that has secured them a valuable clean sweep of points to kick off the season on the right foot.
MOLLY'S FOOTY RANTS 