Chelsea 3-1 Leicester: WSL leaders back to winning ways with Foxes victory to open eight-point gap on Man Utd

Chelsea got back to winning ways in the Women’s Super League with a 3-1 win against Leicester City at Kingsmeadow.

Sonia Bompastor’s side have now opened an eight-point gap on Manchester United in second after the head coach admitted before the fixture that her team were “desperate” to atone for their errors in the 2-2 draw against Brighton three days ago.

Catarina Macario was one of five changes made on the evening and it was her deflected free-kick that looped in to give the Blues an early lead (8).

After weathering a late push from Leicester in the first half, Chelsea added their second through a well-worked move that was rounded off by Aggie Beever-Jones (51), but the visitors responded immediately when Yuka Momiki drifted into the box and lifted her effort over the head of Hannah Hampton.

They were two goals of immense quality in the space of five minutes after Mayra Ramirez’s smart backheel teed up the Chelsea team move before Momiki’s brilliance silenced the home crowd.

Leicester continued to ask questions of Chelsea but any nerves were settled when substitute Erin Cuthbert curled home a third (87) to seal all three points, moments after the midfielder rattled the crossbar from range with a strike from a similar distance.

Bompastor’s side have clear daylight at the top of the table and etching their name onto the trophy, for a fourth season in a row, seems inevitable.

Bompastor: I expected this reaction after Brighton

Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor told Sky Sports:

“When you drop points, the reaction is important but I was expecting it. I wanted to score quickly in the game and we had a lot of opportunities.

“We should be more clinical. When we were up 2-0, we cannot concede the goal we conceded. Sometimes it happens.

“You need to control more things and we gave them a goal. I don’t think it’s in terms of confidence, sometimes we are just more fluent.

“I am not too worried. We have big games coming up. I have depth in my squad and it is nice to rotate, it gives the players a chance to show their quality but maybe we lose some quality.

“We could have done a lot better than where we are, in terms of results. We are ready, mentally and physically. We are looking forward to those moments [the final stretch].”

Miquel on how to cause Chelsea problems

Leicester head coach Amandine Miquel speaking to Sky Sports:

“We played well, in and out of possession. There were some really good things. The character and attitude was really good.

“We had a plan to overload one side and to use the double pivot. The intention was to take advantage of the counter-attack. It was about the last pass and the shots were a bit far.

“When you take a new club, it takes time. Maybe even more when we had the challenges we had. The players are starting to understand what we want to do tactically.”

On Ruby Mace’s injury after the player was pictured on crutches after the game, Miquel added: “Obviously we don’t know, we prefer not to say anything until the scan. We hope she will be fine.”

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