Here’s Suzanne Wrack’s match report:
Summing up
Who needs Sam Kerr? Well, Chelsea do and will, overall, but in their injured striker’s absence, Lauren James provided yet more evidence of her star quality with another Stamford Bridge hat-trick for a Chelsea side who looked as if they would tear Manchester United to pieces in the first half-hour before their opponents remembered that they’ve some class in their ranks too and probed at some flaws in Chelsea’s armoury. But they weren’t ultimately coherent or ruthless enough, and defeat will only add to the pressure on their manager, Marc Skinner, with a top-three place looking a tall order now.
It was a decent, feisty game overall, but one that reminded us that Chelsea are still the standard-setters. Our match report will be up on the site soon but that’s us done for this game. Thanks for reading and emailing. Bye.
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