Goals from Guro Reiten, Fran Kirby and a hattrick from Sam Kerr ensured a straightforward retention of the Continental League Cup for Chelsea, who triumphed with the largest margin of victory in a final in the competition’s history.
The tenth Continental League Cup final pitted Bristol City up against defending champions Chelsea at Vicarage Road, a matchup that if not for Bristol’s victory over Reading earlier in the week would have pitted the WSL’s bottom side against the league leaders.
Despite the morale boost that the aforementioned victory would have given them, it did not take long for Bristol’s defence to succumb to the overwhelming quality of Chelsea’s attackers.
It took less than ninety seconds for Fran Kirby, fresh off of signing a new contract with the Blues to run in behind and thread a pass across goal for Sam Kerr, who simply poked the ball into the empty net to put Chelsea one-nil ahead.
The goal left Matt Beard’s side reeling and Chelsea would smell blood, doubling their lead inside ten minutes as Bristol gave the ball away deep in their own half and were left outnumbered, Kirby again would provide the assist to Kerr, who finished across goal and marked her double with an impressive acrobatic celebration.
The Londoners looked a step ahead for the majority of the first half as the underdogs were unable to get out of their half for large spells, with star player Ebony Salmon left playing with her back to goal, a product of Chelsea’s smothering press cutting out any through balls for Salmon to run on to.
After playing the facilitator for the opening two goals, Kirby would notch her own, albeit after an unfortunate error from Bristol ‘keeper Sophie Baggaley.
Baggaley would try to clear the ball but it would fall directly to Kirby with the shot stopper left off of her line. Kirby would fire the ball towards goal from long range and Baggaley was unable to correct her position despite her quality performances throughout the season, giving Chelsea a three-nil lead.
Kirby would find her second just after the half hour mark as Kerr threaded a ball forward and Kirby would again skip behind the Bristol back line and fire. Baggaley was able to get a foot to it but could not keep it out as Chelsea blasted ahead to a four-nil lead, which would break the record for the largest margin of victory in a Continental Cup final.
With five minutes to go in the first half, Kirby had her chance to secure her hattrick but was denied by a strong save from Baggaley to end the half with some dignity for the underdogs.
Any questions on which Chelsea player would be the one to secure their hattrick would be answered inside three minutes of the second half as Kirby was played in behind once again and unselfishly squared the ball across to Kerr who was left with a simple finish to make it five for the Blues.
Kirby’s final contribution to the game would be her fourth assist of the afternoon, a pass across to Guro Reiten before both Kirby and Kerr would be subbed off, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes clearly assured in her side’s victory, adding on to the three changes made for the Blues at the break.
Bristol would subsequently have chances to reduce the deficit, predictably through Salmon as she powered ahead of Millie Bright and the Chelsea defence and forced a point blank save from Ann-Katrin Berger. Salmon would then be the provider, chipping in a pass to Charlie Wellings who could not get on the end of it.
With less than a quarter of an hour to play, an almost perfect afternoon for the Londoners would be stained with a sour note as Maren Mjelde went down screaming following a challenge that appeared to badly injure her knee.
Mjelde was put on oxygen and stretchered off with the commentary team later confirming that she had been immediately placed into an ambulance so her injury could be evaluated further at a nearby hospital.
The closing stages of the game would take place under almost a sombre tone and even after the final whistle, Chelsea’s celebrations were understandably muted, with Emma Hayes delivering a speech to her players before a round of applause and embraces amongst the victors. Fran Kirby would take home Player of the Match honours after contributing to all six goals of the afternoon.
The Inbound Observer 