Ramírez and Reiten strikes against Manchester City give Chelsea WSL top spot

It was an emphatic end to the tightest of chess matches, but goals from Mayra Ramírez and Guro Reiten ensured Chelsea took the spoils from the most strategic of encounters to leapfrog Manchester City at the top of the WSL table.

The anguish on Alex Greenwood’s face after Ramírez had escaped her clutches, the one and only time she would across the 96 minutes played, told the story of the significance of the defeat. Both managers had played down the impact of this one game on the title race, last season City took four points across the two games against their rivals with Chelsea winning the title on goal difference. However, the deflation in the lowered heads of the City players on the final whistle suggested otherwise.

The wind is in Chelsea’s sails, Sonia Bompastor’s side moving two points clear of their rivals with the 2-0 win and holding a game in hand.

Many were predicting that only the finest of margins would separate the WSL’s two in-form sides. When the teamsheet landed the odds edged in Chelsea’s favour, Lauren Hemp and Greenwood’s defensive partner, Laia Aleixandri, costly omissions for the visiting team. Gareth Taylor had been cagey about influential Hemp’s chances of being fit after a knee injury ruled her out of their midweek Champions League defeat of Swedish side Hammarby, and the absence of the forward, who has created 26 chances in the league this season, was felt at Stamford Bridge, with service to Khadija Shaw limited in the first half forcing her to edge deeper and deeper in search of the ball.

City dominated possession wise, but that counted for little, their best chance of the half coming when Sandy Baltimore inexplicably sent her back pass straight into the run of Shaw, the forward dragging her shot wide to spare the French defender’s blushes.

It was unsurprising that Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, October’s WSL player of the month, would prove to be Chelsea’s brightest outlet, but the Blues were lacking in cutting edge, Maika Hamano and Reiten both failing to convert from chances created by Rytting Kaneryd and the forward herself finding her shot expertly blocked by Aleixandri replacement Alanna Kennedy shortly before the break.

For all the build-up, the clash of the title titans was not delivering to match the hype.

The second half was more frenetic. Perhaps it was due to the palpably tense atmosphere as the game wore on. Perhaps it was the feeling that the chance to maintain a winning run was slipping away for the home team. Perhaps it was the likelihood of City extending their lead at the top of the table diminishing. Whatever it was, the energy was upped, but this game was a testament to the defensive prowess of England centre-backs Millie Bright and Greenwood, the latter’s wonderfully timed tackle to prevent Ramírez from getting a shot away around the 50-minute mark symbolic of the battle that raged between the pair and that which continued between Bright and Shaw at the other end.

It was inevitable that an opening would come from a chink in that defensive armour and, in the 75th minute Ramírez pounced. Alanna Kennedy was muscled off the ball leaving the Colombian forward one-on-one with Greenwood who she sidestepped before firing low into the far corner past Ayaka Yamashita.

With City rattled, Chelsea doubled their lead five minutes later when Lucy Bronze clipped the ball to an unmarked Reiten on the right and the Norwegian forward curled the ball into the bottom corner.

Advantage Chelsea, who have seven wins from seven games in the WSL under Bompastor and sailed, in the end, over their biggest hurdle to date.

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