LONDON — Chelsea extended their winning run to nine victories from nine Women’s Super League (WSL) games but they were pushed all the way by a Brighton side who lost 4-2 after a battling performance in terrible weather at Kingsmeadow.
Chelsea remained top on 27 points with Manchester City, who hammered Leicester City 4-0, second on 22 points and Arsenal, who cruised to a 4-0 win over Aston Villa, third on 18.
With a blustery wind and pouring rain making conditions difficult, the insistence of both teams on playing the ball out from the back led to a number of hair-raising situations and a few goals that neither side will enjoy watching back.
Chelsea were 3-1 up and cruising after a goal credited to Johanna Rytting Kaneryd in the 51st minute that the winger knew little about, but a mistake by Blues keeper Hannah Hampton gifted Kiko Seike a goal for the visiting Seagulls in the 71st minute and sparked a frenetic hunt for an equaliser.
Seike went close again late on but her effort was diverted behind for a corner and that miss was punished when Sjoeke Nusken scored her second goal of the game from a stoppage-time corner at the near post to wrap up the three points for Chelsea, Reuters reported.
Manchester United was not to be outdone, also winning 4-0 against Liverpool. Liverpool did the double over their rivals last season but United dominated this match, with Elisabeth Terland and Leah Galton scoring in the first half and Dominique Janssen and Melvine Malard adding two more in the second half.
In North London, a Beth England brace gave Tottenham Hotspur a 2-1 win over Everton, while in the late kick-off West Ham United bounced back from conceding two goals in the opening 11 minutes to beat Crystal Palace 5-2.
In a league where as many points separate first and second as sixth and 12th, the interest lies towards the bottom and West Ham’s impressive comeback has calmed relegation talk, but Skinner thinks Palace will survive too.
“I don’t think they’ll go down, don’t ask me who I think will because I’m not going to answer that,” Skinner said. “But yeah, I don’t think they’ll go down.”
Kaminski was warmed by those words after seeing her side take a two‑goal lead inside 11 minutes before it began to fall apart. “Fair play, thanks to her for saying that,” she said.
“Do you know what? That’s a very respectful comment to make and it gives me a lot of confidence. For long periods of the game, I thought we played some lovely football, probably some of the best football I’ve seen us play. Unfortunately, we gave it away on the transition and that punished us.”
Goals from Viviane Asseyi, Seraina Piubel, Manuela Paví, Anouk Denton and Katrina Gorry for West Ham cancelled out the early lead Mille Gejl and Indiah-Paige Riley had given the visiting side at a bitterly cold and wind-lashed Victoria Road.
West Ham, Palace and Leicester had started the day level on five points and with the Midlands side enduring a 4-0 defeat against Manchester City there was an opportunity for one of the other relegation‑threatened teams to put a slither of daylight between themselves and bottom. That is how tight things are in the WSL, with only five points separating Tottenham in sixth, on 10 points, and Palace in 12th, on five, by the close of play.
For the fourth time in five games Palace took the lead. This time their opener came in the fifth minute. Kirsty Smith was dispossessed in the final third and Annabel Blanchard fed Gejl, who slotted the ball under the goalkeeper Kinga Szemik and in. By the 11th minute their cushion was doubled, as Riley cut on to her left and bobbled the ball into the bottom corner.
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