Tottenham Hotspur Ladies slumped to their third defeat of the WSL campaign with a 3-0 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this afternoon. A 3-goal first-half blitz saw the visitors simply blown away by the quality of their opponents, who marked Emma Hayes’ return to the dugout by going top of the table following Arsenal’s defeat at home to Manchester United last night.
Rehanne Skinner made a solitary change from the side that wiped the floor with Brighton three weeks ago, introducing Jess Naz in place of the injured Nikola Karczewska, and the visitors had the first sight of goal early on when Eveliina Summanen’s long-range free-kick was collected comfortably by Ann-Katrin Berger in the Chelsea goal.
The hosts opened the scoring four minutes later when Sam Kerr fired a right-footed finish past Spurs keeper Tinja-Riika Korpela, with three surrounding Spurs defenders powerless to stop the Australian.
From that moment on, Spurs simply could not deal with Chelsea’s quality, and it did not even take fifteen minutes for the Blues to double their lead. An outswinging corner was only half-cleared to Erin Cuthbert, who chested the ball down 20 yards out and unleashed a fierce volley that Korpela could not keep out despite getting a hand to the ball.
It would get even worse for Spurs 10 minutes later, when Lauren James was fouled by the usually reliable Ashleigh Neville in the penalty area, leading to a Chelsea penalty that Guro Reiten duly converted.
Chelsea went into conservation mode from that moment onwards, knowing that the result would be enough to see them end the weekend top. Although Spurs huffed and puffed and improved in the second half, the damage had already been long done, and the wretched record against the division’s top sides continues.