Chelsea retain Women’s League Cup Champions
Chelsea retain Women’s League Cup as Lauren James and Aggie Beever-Jones sink Man United.
Goals from Lauren James and Aggie Beever-Jones helped Chelsea retain the Women’s League Cup with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United at Ashton Gate.
The first bit of silverware of the season was up for grabs, but Sonia Bompastor’s side proved too good for the Red Devils and got their hands on the trophy for a fourth time.
A mistake led to James opening the scoring against her former club in a frantic first half which saw both sides have plenty of chances.
United looked good value for an equaliser, but Chelsea were clinical and that proved to be the difference when Beever-Jones sealed the win with a close-range finish 14 minutes from time.
Both teams got off to a ferocious start with Chelsea winning the first corner of the match inside a minute but the Red Devils turned defence into attack as Elisabeth Terland ran into space and fired an effort from 25 yards which Hannah Hampton had to deal with.
Chelsea had United under immense pressure through the early stages, with James seeing plenty of the ball. She should have put her side in front, but she curled her effort wide.
Chelsea women winning trophies. Regardless of their form this season, regardless of an all-but relinquished Women’s Super League title, with Manchester City nine points clear at the top of the table, you can never bet against the Blues in a cup final – or Lauren James making an impact.
If there was a time for Manchester United to get the better of Sonia Bompastor’s side, having twice lost to them in the FA Cup final, it was now. Marc Skinner’s side sits one point ahead of Chelsea in the league, and they have looked in better form.
James was electric for Chelsea and the architect of their opener as much as the scorer, the England forward pounced and nicked the ball away from Dominique Janssen who failed to control a throw in, before she drove into the box and fired past Phallon Tullis-Joyce and celebrated by cupping her ears towards the United fans behind the goal – it was her sixth against her former side since she left them for the Blues in 2021.
“We know how good Lauren James is as a player but I think we gave her a bit too much respect today,” said Skinner. “We were a little bit too far off her in case she beats you. She can be the game-changing difference.”
Bompastor called the slick forward “one of the best in the world” following this performance. “If the injuries go away from her, she’s one of the best in the world,” she said. “When you have her at that level, it helps a lot.”
Matches between United and Chelsea are getting increasingly tight, despite the latter’s dominance with 15 wins and two draws in 18 meetings. The most recent was their last outing, a 2-1 win for the Blues in a fifth-round FA Cup tie providing an amuses to the main course of the final following the three-week interruption of the international break.
Next season, teams that qualify for Champions League football will not play in the League Cup. The change makes sense in some ways. Both Chelsea and United played only three games in a tournament they swept into and could pick up silverware in. It also lightens the load on players, with concern over the overloading and underloading of players only getting louder. The risk, though, is that the change could be the death knell of the competition, which will struggle for attention and relevance without the country’s top teams involved.
