Penalty controversy mars Chelsea's WSL victory over Manchester City
Women’s Super League refereeing was put in the spotlight again after a controversial penalty decision and case of mistaken identity marred a deserved 3-1 Chelsea win over their title rivals Manchester City at Kingsmeadow.
With the game scoreless, the Chelsea forward Erin Cuthbert lashed a screaming shot towards goal and the ball ricocheted off the body of City’s leaping left-back Demi Stokes, who had her arms tightly to her chest, as her teammate Ellen White jumped with her arms aloft behind her. With a poor line of sight, England’s premier female referee, Rebecca Welch, pointed to the spot and issued a yellow card to White. The forward was dragged away from Welch by Lucy Bronze as she screamed her innocence.
Maren Mjelde powered the spotkick beyond Ellie Roebuck to put the home side ahead. The lead was deserved, the manner of the goal that would open things up was not.
“I’ve heard it’s a shocker,” said the City manager, Gareth Taylor. “We just need to focus on ourselves and not make excuses. The frustration is there. This won’t define our season.”
Emma Hayes had thrown down her title-laden gauntlet before the meeting between arguably the two strongest squads in the league. “We’re the champions of England and I expect us to demonstrate the behaviours of champions,” she had said.
Her starting XI dripped with worldclass talent. The Australia striker Sam Kerr was up top, flanked by Scotland’s Cuthbert and the European player of the year, Pernille Harder of Denmark. They burst out of the traps as if fuelled by their manager’s words against a City side that had eased past Everton, the season’s surprise package, in the League Cup in midweek.
Within minutes the home team had stamped their authority on the match. “We won our one v one battles everywhere,” said Hayes, reserving praise for Cuthbert in particular, who ran Bronze ragged. “She’s like a hound dog, she’s a permanent pest,” she said with a smile. “What a performance from our little Scot. She is prepared to do all the shitty jobs and she does them at the top level. I love that human.”
The first chance did fall to White but City’s openings would be few and far between. Hunting like wolves, Chelsea pushed City back into their own half time and time again; should a player in black dare step past the halfway line, they would be immediately surrounded and forced to look backwards for the
pass.
With their 36th-minute lead courtesy of the controversial penalty likely combining with tiring legs from the relentlessness of their pursuit of the ball, Chelsea eased off a little and, in the second half, City began to come into the game. That, though, left space for the pace of Kirby and Cuthbert and just before the hour mark a perfectly weighted cross from the right from the former found Kerr in the middle and the Australian superstar tapped in her third league goal of the season.
There would be hope in the form of another handball, this one more straightforward, as Caroline Weir’s effort slapped the flailing arm of the centre-back Millie Bright, and Kelly launched into her hop, skip and jump run-up before powering in her third penalty in all competitions.
“To have each other’s backs and show a positive attitude [in response to] difficult moments and difficult setbacks [shows] that we’re on the same page,” Hayes had said of her side’s coolness after Arsenal equalised in the 4-1 League Cup defeat of the Gunners on Wednesday. In the afternoon sun of Kingsmeadow the attitude was the same and with 10 minutes remaining Cuthbert set Kirby free. The England international rounded Roebuck and rolled the ball over the line to restore the two-goal lead and give her team first blood against a rival in their defence of the league title.