Erin Cuthbert was at the heart of a dominant Chelsea display as the Blues won 5-0 away at West Ham to mark their return to Women’s Super League action following the winter break with a bang.
It was one way traffic for much of the game, and it took just 11 minutes for the pressure on the weak West Ham defence to tell as a clever, flicked one-two between Sjoeke Nusken and Catarina Macario allowed the latter to score a side-footed volley from the edge of the penalty area.
The West Ham midfield struggled to contain Cuthbert, meanwhile, as she was allowed to orchestrate each attack, and the Scotland midfielder doubled the Blues’ advantage after being given space to drive a low effort into the bottom left corner. The hosts’ misery was compounded yet further as Aggie Beever-Jones collected a poor Amber Tysiak pass to score from the edge of the box after 44 minutes and send the Blues into the break 3-0 up.
The Hammers’ persistence to pass out the back was punished again by the league leaders in the second period as Niamh Charles robbed Kirsty Smith to set up Sandy Baltimore to make it four. Sonia Bompastor then rang the changes, and the game looked to be fizzling out before Tysiak diverted a cutback into her own net as the WSL leaders made a statement to their title rivals.
GOAL rates Chelsea’s players from the Chigwell Construction Stadium…