Sunday 5th March 2023: FA Women’s League Cup: Selhurst Park: Arsenal vs Chelsea
It was freezing cold on the first Sunday on March 2023 and I was crammed into Selhurst Park, full to the brim with 19,000 fellow fans waiting patiently for the London Derby to kick-off. I had not however, come to see Crystal Palace face down a North London league rival. No, I was in this historic stadium for the showdown between Arsenal and Chelsea, the two greatest teams that Women’s football in the capital has to offer.
The only problem for both teams was going to be scoring goals. Both were without some of their most potent finishers. Arsenal would have to do without both Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema, who are both side-lined with ACL injuries and Chelsea have been shorn of Fran Kirby (Knee) and Pernille Harder (Hamstring) through injury.
Mead and Miedema have been out for months already for the Gunners, but in that time none of their replacements up front have scored more than a single goal each. The situation in Chelsea’s front-line is less dire. They still had the potency of Sam Kerr to finish off the chances and had bought in Lauren James in January to bolster their attacking options.
Other good omens for Chelsea included that Arsenal hadn’t beaten them in their previous 5 meetings, since the opening day of last season and this final is a re-run of 2020 when the blues run out 2-0 winners.
It took just 97 seconds for Sam Kerr to give Chelsea the lead. Erin Cuthbert launched the ball forward to Kerr, who held it up brilliantly before slipping it out to James on the right. Her cross floated it’s way over everyone, but when the ball was recycled to Guro Reiten on the left her cross to the back post was pinpoint accurate. All Kerr had to do at the back post was rise higher than the waiting James and nod the ball in from point blank range. She obliged with aplomb and Chelsea were on their way to what looked like a simple victory.
If Chelsea had continued to push forward and asserted their control of proceedings it may have been such a victory, but instead they chose to sit back, invite pressure and allow Arsenal to build up a head of steam. Luckily for the Blues nothing in the next 10 minutes gave any hint that their opponents had ever played in the penalty area before.
Arsenal drew scored the equaliser in the 16th minute. The ball ran through to an unmarked Stina Blackstenius 10 yards from goal, having deflected off a defender’s leg, and she did the rest, cooling slotting it past Ann-Katrin Berger and propelling Arsenal back to parity. It took just 8 minutes from the restoration of parity for the Gunners to take the lead as Kim Little powered in from 12 yards.
Little had started the move with a glorious outside of the boot flick up to Katie McCabe, who was hacked down as she twisted inside to set up for a shot. Kim is as lethal as a cyanide injection from the penalty spot and slammed it home to the keeper’s right.
Arsenal now had the lead and unlike their illustrious city rivals they showed no sign of resting on their laurels and surrendering the initiative. They kept their feet on Chelsea’s throats and doubled their lead in the dying moments of the half, on the fourth occasion that they untied ball and net. Their third successful attempt at this mission had been ruled out for offside in the build up.
When Arsenal got their third goal that counted it came off the boot of Chelsea midfielder Niamh Charles. In defence of Charles she had the right idea, to try and clear a dangerous corner from the right, but her touch bounced the wrong way and the next I knew Berger was picking the ball out of the net. Arsenal led 3-1 at the break and were proving that even without Mead and Miedema they still knew how to score goals.
Emma Hayes has won so much as Chelsea manager so she is no stranger to making the tough decisions and she showed this at half-time by removing Charles from the action at half-time and sending on Melanie Leupolz on in her stead. This was not the first Chelsea substitution of the match though, as Jelena Cankovic got hooked with just 39 minutes gone, with Kadeisha Buchanan given the task of justifying such an early introduction.
Neither of these changes had the desired effect for the blues though and nor did the introductions of Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Jessie Fleming, for Magdalena Eriksson and Sophie Ingle respectively. Their opponents had them pinned back into their own area within a minute of the restart.
The Gunners were unable to translate their dominance into goals though, even when Berger passed a goal kick straight into Blackstenius’ path in the 51st minute, as the second half devolved into a competitive midfield battle. Arsenal were consistently shading the battle, but whenever they ranged forward the thin blue line stopped them in their tracks.
The Gunners would spend the rest of the half lining up shots to break that thin blue line to dust without success, but at 3-1 up they could live with that and as the game reached it’s conclusion it showed. It took till the 70th minute for Chelsea to get any kind of forward momentum and till the final 10 of proceedings for them to translate that momentum into a credible goal threat.
In that final 10 minutes Chelsea threw everything they had at the Gunner’s backline. James, Erin Cuthbert, Reiten, Kerr and Buchanan all took their own pot-shots at glory, but despite all that firepower the Blues were unable to find the breakthrough they needed to provide hope of an increasingly unlikely comeback. For the final 5 minutes the ‘away’ team were even willing to weaken their backline. They went full send on their attacking philosophy and sent Millie Bright up from centre back to play as striker.
Ultimately though, nothing Chelsea tried worked and when the final whistle blew it was Arsenal who were left celebrating shooting down their first trophy since 2019. They may have forgotten how to win in the intervening years, but they certainly remembered how to celebrate.
Chelsea were left contemplating how a team that they have had the number of for the past 18 months, and without their two main goalscorers, could brush them aside so easily. They needed to work out the answer quickly as now they only had the FA Cup and WSL titles to defend.
The Football tourist 