WSL champions Chelsea sent a cold welcome to newcomers Crystal Palace as six second-half goals settled their Friday evening game at a 7-0 score line.
Aggie Beever-Jones opened her tally for the season with the breakthrough goal, orchestrated perfectly by winger Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, who obtained the ball whilst Palace were on the attack and broke down the wing.
Rytting Kaneryd utilised her pace to glide past the Eagles defence and cut back to Beever-Jones, who hammered the ball home for 1-0.
Prior to that, it was Crystal Palace who’d had the best opportunity of the game, when Indiah-Paige Riley intercepted a misplaced pass from Hannah Hampton and was able to sprint into the box without much contention.
One too many touches forced her to take a shot from a wider angle and Hampton was able to recover from her error to make the save.
Chelsea had the lions share of the possession across the first half, however Crystal Palace were disciplined in their system of using their forward players to crowd the midfield and prevent the serial winners from creating to many difficult situations for Eagles goalkeeper Shae Yáñez, who was able to keep her team at just a 1-0 deficit heading into half-time.
After the break however, Chelsea truly found their scoring boots.
England star Lucy Bronze claimed her first goal for the club just three minutes after play resumed when she ran onto a clearance and fired into the top corner for 2-0.
The introduction of Mayra Ramirez only made the chances come faster, a well-placed cut across goal from the Colombian allowed Lauren James a simple tap in.
It wasn’t only Chelsea creating chances though, former Liverpool striker Katie Stengel was finding herself shots inside the box, although she was often limited to taking first time chances and hoping to catch Hampton off guard as the Chelsea defence marked her carefully.
The next goal came from a well worked team move with Catarina Macario slotting the ball through to young midfielder Wieke Kaptein, who, though urged to shoot by the Chelsea crowd, unselfishly cut the ball back to Guro Reiten for the Norwegian’s first goal of the game.
It was Macario’s corner delivery that set up the fifth goal, the floating ball in finding Nathalie Björn at the back post, who was able to guide the ball home in a brief misconnection.
Two goals in the final minutes of the game hit the nail on the head for the visiting champions, Guro Reiten with her second of the game at 90 minutes and Macario, collecting the rebound after Yáñez saved a shot from Ramirez, adding a goal to her assist.
The emphatic result sends Chelsea to the top of the WSL, with a +8-goal difference, something that helped guide them to the title last season.
Crystal Palace stay in the relegation zone, having conceded nine goals over their first two games in an unfortunate start to their first Women’s Super League campaign.
Starting XIs:
Crystal Palace: Yáñez (GK), Green, Everett, Veje, Gibbons, Woodham, Riley, Blanchard, Cato, Gejl, Stengel
Chelsea: Hampton (GK), Bronze, Bright, Bjorn, Laurence, Nüsken, Kaneryd, Cuthbert, Reiten, James, Beever-Jones
Featured image courtesy of Jeffwarder via Wikimedia Commons. No changes were made to this image. License details found here.
