Chelsea humiliate Manchester City to heap pressure on Gareth Taylor
A toothless Manchester City suffered a humiliating 4-0 defeat to the champions Chelsea to ramp up the pressure on their manager, Gareth Taylor.
A goal a minute in from Jessie Fleming was added to by Sam Kerr, Fran Kirby and Magda Eriksson as they picked City apart at the Academy Stadium.
City sit eighth in the WSL table, seven points off the third Champions League spot, and have just seven points from seven games.
If there were hopes that this could be the moment to relaunch City’s season then they were very quickly squashed. It took just 67 seconds for Chelsea to take the lead and it was gifted to them. City’s third-choice goalkeeper Karima Taieb passed to Alex Greenwood but it was woefully short and Fleming nipped in, rounded the hapless Taieb and stroked the ball into the net.
It was a bruising start but Chelsea’s targeting of Taieb was not unexpected.
She has played all of City’s 13 games this season but has struggled to get anywhere near the standards set by the injured Ellie Roebuck and Karen Bardsley. With this latest howler, and after two big errors in City’s defeat to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final, the 16-year-old Grace Pilling must surely be in line to start ahead of her.
Despite that, City had a good spell of play in the first half, with midfielders Caroline Weir and Keira Walsh and the ever-energetic Lauren Hemp helping the home team to edge the midfield battle. Wise to the threat of Hemp, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes had her own dogged and nippy forward Erin Cuthbert virtually man-marking the winger.
In stark contrast to the error from her opposite number, Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger did well to stretch out a leg and push aside a shot from Weir after Walsh had played her in through the middle.
Berger was on hand again and collided heavily with Hemp as she blocked her shot with both players requiring lengthy treatment. In the resulting five minutes of added time before the break Chelsea struck again. A Ji So-yun cross from the left was nodded down by a falling Guro Reiten at the back post and Kerr poked in.
Despite City being winless in eight WSL games against Chelsea, Hayes’ side had never won away from home against them in the league with five defeats on their travels.
In the second half Chelsea ramped up the pressure on City’s beleaguered and makeshift back line with two goals in four minutes, both from corners. First, mirroring a manoeuvre used in the Cup semi-final, a short corner to Cuthbert was worked from right to left and back again for the Scot to place into the path of Kirby who sent a curling shot into the far corner. Then, Melanie Leupolz’s inswinging corner was headed in powerfully by the Chelsea captain Eriksson with Taieb seemingly pulling away from an attempt to punch it clear.
Kirby has now scored 17 WSL goals and provided 12 assists in 2021 and is the only player in the history of the league to both score and assist more than 10 goals in a single calendar year.
As City’s losses accumulate so does the pressure on Taylor. A staggeringly large injury list means there are some allowances to be made for their early form, but there has still been significant strength in the starting XI each week that makes their points tally and position surprising leading to fingers being pointed at the man organising that talent.