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Like all good things when it comes to Liverpool, they must come to an end. That’s what happened Sunday when the Liverpool Ladies traveled to meet the Chelsea Ladies, only to be handed their first loss of the spring series in stunning fashion. Chelsea spared no mercy as they dominated the Lady Reds, scoring seven goals against them, starting at just two minutes in when a corner wasn’t cleared well enough and Gilly Flaherty opened things up for the home side.
While things seemed to look up for the Reds through the first half, as Siobhan Chamberlain made three incredible saves to keep Chelsea at bay, it all started to fall apart just before the end as two goals in two minutes from Fran Kirby and Ji So-Yun made it 3-0 at halftime. The horror didn’t stop there, as Chelsea continued to absolutely dominate the game, making it 4-0 two minutes after the start of the second half as So-Yun set up Maren Mjelde to place the ball in the bottom corner.
Natasha Harding was the only one to go close for Liverpool, but was easily denied by Chelsea’s Carly Telford, maintaining the home side’s clean sheet. Karen Carney, Erin Cuthbert, and Drew Spence made the win complete, scoring at 66, 79, and 84 minutes respectively. The win sends Chelsea within one point of Liverpool at the top of the table.
“I felt that you can’t start a game like that against a top team,” said manager Scott Rogers following the loss. “We might as well have come out and given them a 1-0 head start but on saying that, the 15 minutes afterwards and it was only 15 minutes, we were probably the better team.
“Then they gradually got back into the game and it all slid downhill from there. Today wasn’t our day and we have to reflect, we have to review it and we will come back stronger from it.
“We’ve got every confidence in this group that we can perform at the top level.
“We’ve proved that throughout the Spring Series. We’ve done really well, it’s just a shame today that it hasn’t come together."
Liverpool Ladies play Manchester City next Saturday for their final match of the Spring Series. Kick off will be at 3:30pm BST/9:30am EST from the Select Security Stadium in Widnes. You can watch all Liverpool Ladies matches through their Facebook page.