TOTTENHAM, 08 FEBRUARY —- Chelsea regained their footing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday, shutting out Spurs 2-0 to push them 4 points ahead of the fifth ranked team on the Women’s Super League table.
The winning goal came in the 49th minute from American forward Alyssa Thomspon. Erin Cuthbert created the initial pass to Sjoeke Nüsken who fired at the goal, but Tottenhom goalkeeper Elize Kop blocked the incoming ball. Spurs thought they were safe, but the deflected ball bounced straight to Thompson’s boots and rocketed to the back of the net in a shocking few seconds of gameplay.
“We know the situation right now is difficult, but we want to fight for every single game,” Barclays Player of the Match Nüsken said. “That’s Chelsea – we want to win everything.“
The first 40 minutes of the match displayed a strong Tottenham start with two shots on goal, but the Blues began to turn things around after a mistake from Spurs.
A Spurs fault led to a Chelsea corner taken by Cuthbert, and as the teams prepared for the set piece midfielder Keira Walsh lined herself away from the group and stood without a marker.
In the 41st minute, Walsh’s plan worked as she watched the ball bounce away from the tight group at the goal straight to her feet where she made a textbook shot past Kop to break the deadlock in the London Derby.
“It was back to the drawing board this week, regrouping, and thinking about how we show ourselves this week,” Cuthbert said. “We didn’t want to be a Chelsea team who bow down game after game, that’s not what we’re about, that’s not what we’re built upon. When you see blocking every ball and sprinting and chasing the ball, from the very first minute we were on it. It was a difficult first 20 minutes, we got quite lucky to be honest. But you’re going to need a bit of luck to get out of a hole.”
Head coach Sonia Bompastor made multiple changes after the first half, and the Blues appeared to shift in tactics and play differently than the team that had lost their last two league matches.
Spurs remain fifth on the table with 26 points, and the Blues separate themselves with 30 points to rejoin the top three. Chelsea will return home to Kingsmeadow for a match-up against 11th-ranked Liverpool on 15 February to continue their WSL season.
