Historic Come back as Manchester City women team defeated defending champions Chelsea to claim continental cup glory.
Last seasons women Champions league finalist Chelsea has lost the Continental cup trophy 3 :1 to Manchester city women team as the blue side of Manchester displayed an unbelievable comeback.
Chelsea hopes to retain a third consecutive continental cup trophy in the cherry red Record stadium, but were put to ruins as a spirited come back in the second half by Gareth Taylor’s side saw off the serial winners of the competition.
Manchester City Women should have opened the scoring before, but Lauren Hemp missed a glorious opportunity from Georgia Stanway’s cross after starting the move herself with a clever turn on the left- wing.
Emma Hayes side would eventually take the lead through Sam Kerr on the 34th minuteas the defending champions looked to run away with the trophy.
Manchester City Women City were a different team after half-time and blew away Chelsea thanks to two strikes from Weir, which came either side of a poacher’s finish from Ellen White.
Weir’s first came with Niamh Charles off the field receiving treatment, and Chelsea did not respond well to being briefly reduced to 10 players as they gifted Stanway the freedom of their half to square for the Scotland international, who steered a shot past Ann-Katrin Berger.
City completed the turnaround nine minutes later when Hemp pinched the ball from Chelsea on the edge of their area and scampered into the box before seeing her shot saved by Berger, who could only parry it straight to the grateful White, Where then ended Chelsea’s resistance on 69 minutes by side-footing Bronze’s knockdown from Stanway’s corner into the roof of the net.
The citizens controlled the game from there on as Chelsea failed to find a way back to the game. The Chelsea boss – Hayes said after the game that she felt her side were missing “experience” with the likes of Fran Kirby and Jessie Fleming ruled – and they barely mustered a fightback, with Roebuck only called into action to parry away a Charles shot from the edge of the area.
In truth, Chelsea were lucky not to concede more, with White guilty of snatching at a chance and Berger fumbling another Bronze header from a corner.
It’s easy to make emotional remarks,” she said. “When it goes 2-1, 3-1, it becomes even more open. I’ve never seen us concede as poorly as we have done and I thought we looked like we were missing a lot of experience in our team.
“First half we did enough without having control of the football in the way that we wanted. I think that’s what let us down today – we didn’t keep the ball well enough.
“Then when it becomes quite transitional, I thought second half, Niamh’s off the pitch, we’re down to 10 and they get a goal and the momentum shifted. The best team won the game over 90 minutes.”
After winning his second trophy as City manager, Gareth Taylor told BBC Sport: “Just really proud of the players. I thought we were immense second half, we were so good.
“We knew we weren’t great in the first half, we knew we had to tweak a few things. We spoke a little bit about belief and faith at half-time, and I thought the players showed more of that in the second half. We went up so many levels it was unbelievable, and we’re deserved winners.
