Mary Fowler’s dream of a first trophy with Manchester City has vanished when Chelsea won her duel of the 2-1 Women’s League Cup, finishing the first stage of her search for a unique “quadruple”.
But Chelsea’s triumph in the first of the four games that will be played between the two sides of the English power in 12 days also established the tempting perspective of an adjustment of again Sam Kerr that soon returned to help his impulse for four trophies in a single campaign.
There was nothing more than disappointment for Fowler in Derby’s Pride Park on Saturday when Matildas star offered another good performance in his impressive season, just for an unfortunate moment to ruin his afternoon.
With the game still blocked in 1-1 in the 77th minute, Fowler gave the ball to Aggie Beever-Jones de Chelsea, who slid the ball by the right flank towards Mayra Ramírez, whose low cross was cut on the net by the Japanese international Yui Hasegawa of the city.
He gave the blues another victory, his 26 in 28 games since the French chief Sonia Bompastor took the reins of Emma Hayes at the beginning of the season, in her still unnecessary campaign.
It was still too early for Matildas Kerr captain to appear in his final alignment despite the fact that this week he was included by a boompastor in his team in the women’s champions League after his long recovery of knee surgery.
But the blues once again demonstrated how they have managed to prosper without their goal star as an eighth strike of Ramírez and the Hasegawa goalkeeper demonstrated enough to win their first victory in the League Cup for four years.
City, under the interim boss Nick Cushing after the crash of coach Gareth Taylor at the beginning of the week, had responded to Ramírez’s early goal with an excellent attack by Aoba Fujino in the 64th minute, and combined the champions for long spells.
Fowler was a constant threat that worked on the left flank, establishing a glorious particular opportunity in the 69th minute when he stole Lucy Bronze on the outskirts of the box, which led the star striker of the city Khadija Shaw, not in his entire afternoon, be frustrated one by one with the goalkeeper Hannah Hampton.
The powerful Colombian Ramírez gave Chelsea the advantage against the game route. Corted by an intelligent Lauren James through the ball, he grouped into the rebound after his original shot was saved.
I could have put the game in bed later in the first half, but on elaborate when it was one by one with Hampton, eventually shooting with the goal to his mercy.
That displacement was an illustration of why Kerr’s return cannot be rapid enough for a bomplector, which will need the Australian since the challenges now become thick and fast.
This was the first of his “tetralogy” against City, with a quarter -final match of the two -legged champions League and the female Super League match in the coming days.
“Now we know that we are in a really decisive moment of the season, and we know that each game will be important,” said Bompastor, whose side is fleeing with the WSL and is also in the last eight of the Women’s FA Cup.
“This is our mentality and we just want to make sure that in the end we take as many trophies as we can, knowing that it will be really difficult.”
AAPA
