December has always been a month of unpredictability in the Women’s Super League (WSL). Maybe it’s the looming winter break or the culmination of three months of back-to-back football.
Whatever the reason, something about Christmas looming into view seems to send players loopy.
Sonia Bompastor got her first experience of this on Saturday lunchtime as her Chelsea side dropped their first points of the season in a 1-1 draw with Leicester City. The match saw Bompastor reunited with fellow French coach Amandine Miquel. The two had met on multiple occasions in their native France where Bompastor managed Lyon and Miquel was in charge of Reims. Before the match, they spoke of their relationship and how it might impact the game.
“I know Amandine by heart,” said Bompastor in her pre-match press conference. “She will give everything, and that’s their mentality to fight from the beginning to the end. She always tries to surprise me with something in the game so I’m ready for that.”
“Over the years in France, when we played Lyon, we tried to spice it up a bit,” Miquel told the media. “We would throw some surprises to make it not nice for them. With Chelsea, why not? We will see. We have a few strange ideas.”
Miquel’s “strange idea” epitomised the direct attacking style her teams espouse. Using Wales’ recent hero Hannah Cain out wide, Miquel looked to exploit the space behind Chelsea full-back Lucy Bronze. The concern around Bronze’s signing was that she no longer had the physical capacity to justify the advanced position she likes to take. She had been assuaging those worries, but Leicester perfectly exploited the space she left behind. Their goal came from Bronze being caught high up the pitch, with Chelsea’s defence dragged across to cover. A late run from Saori Takarada was not tracked by Wieke Kaptein, with Ashley Lawrence attempting to cover. That left Missy Goodwin unmarked to score.
From there, it was as if Chelsea hit the panic button. They had looked from the start like they were toiling but passes continued to be overhit or misplaced as the pressure mounted to try not just to get an equaliser, but a winner. Little was created from the 20 corners they had throughout the game, most of which were played short.
Eventually, the 19-year-old Kaptein took matters into her own hands, controlling a forceful pass from Bronze before driving forward to finish from the edge of the area. But there was to be no winner, and even though Chelsea had chances to take all three points, they would not have deserved them.
Bompastor has not minced her words even during Chelsea’s winning run, and it was no different after their first draw of the season.
”When we talk about ambitions, we need to turn the words into action,” she said in her post-match press conference.
”The players need to realise this league is competitive and if you don’t show up from the beginning of every game, you don’t get good results.”
Manchester City misfire
Advantage Manchester City, then? Gareth Taylor could scarcely have believed an opportunity to close Chelsea’s five-point lead on his team would land in his lap like this. Particularly against Everton, who City had beaten in all 16 of their WSL matches. Everton had not beaten any of the traditional ‘top three’ of Chelsea, Arsenal and City since 2013.
But City found themselves conceding twice in the first half, to Lucy Hope and Honoka Hayashi, as Everton exploited gaps on the counter-attack before showing the same defensive nous that helped them to a 0-0 draw against Arsenal at the Emirates in October.
City were missing captain Alex Greenwood, top scorer Khadija Shaw, plus longer-term absentees Lauren Hemp and Vivianne Miedema. They looked laboured in attack, and truthfully did little to threaten Everton even after Mary Fowler’s penalty following a foul on Yui Hasegawa gave them a lifeline in the 89th minute.
“We looked a bit flat today, like a team that has played quite a few games recently,” Taylor told the BBC after the match. “We didn’t seem to have much energy.”
The result meant that far from reeling in Chelsea over the weekend, the league leaders extended their buffer at the top to six points. Arsenal and Manchester United were the real winners. Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Liverpool, thanks to a goal from Alessia Russo, puts them one point behind second-placed City, and seven off the top. United are in the same position having beaten Crystal Palace 1-0 with a goal from Grace Clinton.
Goater rings the changes at Aston Villa
Aston Villa made a positive start under interim manager Shaun Goater as players came in from the cold to orchestrate a 3-1 win over West Ham United.
Canada forward Adriana Leon, 32, and 33-year-old France midfielder Kenza Dali made their second and fourth WSL starts of the season, and made big impacts.
Leon opened the scoring within four minutes, picking up a loose ball and driving forward to finish past Kinga Szemik in the West Ham goal. Despite Viviane Asseyi equalising for West Ham, Dali assisted Leon’s second before putting the match to bed by scoring Villa’s third.
The result is only Villa’s second win of the season and lifts them to seventh, level on points with Liverpool and Everton.
Clearly the experience paid off but with seven of Villa’s starting XI over the 30, this team needs to find a way to rejuvenate itself. The priority following former manager Robert de Pauw’s departure would always be to steady the ship and pick up points, but the squad structure is not set up for long-term success.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
