THE ACADEMY STADIUM — They were not at their best, but Emma Hayes’ Chelsea thoroughly demonstrated why they deserved a spot in the FA Cup final when they comfortably beat current holders Manchester City 3-0 on Saturday.
The London club put in the epitome of a professional performance, taking advantage of the opportunities they were handed by the hosts and digging deep to then hold onto that lead for the rest of the match.
“I thought it was very professional,” Hayes said. “I thought our mentality was fantastic from the off, I thought the way we pressed, the way we counter-pressed had real intent.
“I thought we had the desire to come here and put in the performance that was needed after a big international camp.”
The game was not pretty, yet Chelsea emerged from the game with a clean sheet and a ticket to the Wembley final. Aniek Nouwen, the Dutch defender who joined this summer, was particularly impressive in the way that she played in the centre of defence. Jess Carter too was another positive, shutting Lauren Hemp out of the match.
For Manchester City, this was yet another lesson in their shortcomings in all areas of the pitch. Between the sticks, Karima Taieb showed why she is the club’s third-choice goalkeeper, a player lacking match sharpness who has clearly not been used to the pressures of top games since she has been given the chance to be the number one.
Ellie Roebuck and Karen Bardsley’s absences are perhaps the worst of those which the blues have faced during their injury crisis. In other positions Gareth Taylor has been able to make things work, but not in goal.
For both of the game’s first-half goals, Taieb should have done better. The first was a powerful half-volley from Erin Cuthbert, but it flew straight at her and the Frenchwoman should have stopped it. Shortly after she failed to move quickly enough and could not stretch to meet Melanie Leupolz’ shot and pull off what should have been a comfortable save.
“You’d expect them to be saved, but it’s easy from the sidelines,” said head coach Gareth Taylor. “You don’t know if it’s come through legs. I was more concerned with the first one that we switched off, which you can’t do against Chelsea.
Elsewhere, City seemed to be devoid of a game plan which would have allowed them to exploit Chelsea. Despite a front three of Ellen White, Lauren Hemp and Bunny Shaw which on paper should pose a serious threat, they rarely did anything of the sort.
Taylor’s methodology seems to be one in which individual players are relied on to produce moments of brilliance to score goals rather than one in which the world-class talent work together as a coherent unit.
Out of the Champions League, last season’s FA cup and 11 points adrift of the top spot, tactical shortcomings will need to be improved on. If Sunday’s game proved anything, it was that City were not good enough to compete with even a subpar Chelsea side.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3mxJgBy
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