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Key events
38 minutes: Beaver-Jones is back. It’s good (I think).
37 minutes: With Chelsea still down to 10, Liverpool find little space outside the Chelsea area. Holland is urged to shoot but her effort is off her weaker right foot and Hampton saves.
35 minutes: Beaver-Jones is still receiving treatment, but the game goes on.
34 minutes: Beaver-Jones gets another ball to the face! This time it’s square on her nose, which is bleeding profusely. Another stoppage in which Izzy Christiansen, who features as a commentator on Sky tonight, suggests the Chelsea winger should be close to a senior England call-up. I wouldn’t agree. Beaver-Jones has 16 under-23 caps.
31 minutes: Chelsea have the ball in the net again but it is (correctly) adjudged to be offside. Liverpool tried to play but Charles returned the ball, found Macario who deflected his shot past Mika. But the Chelsea striker was just sent off.
28 minutes: Beaver-Jones takes a nasty ball straight to the tackles. Hey, we’re going to have a break. Beaver-Jones checks her teeth – they’re all there – so she can continue.
26 minutes: Straight from a Chelsea corner, Liverpool break through and suddenly it’s two on two at the back for Chelsea! Hinds sprinted a full 60 yards to get into shooting position, but the pass fell just short and Lawrence again made a crucial interception. Hayes will be angry at Chelsea’s naivety there. Liverpool are the better team after Chelsea’s goal.
25 minutes: More encouragement for Matt Beard and Liverpool! Enderby drops deep into pockets of space and so almost finds the overlapping Koivisto with an absolutely absurd center ball, but Hampton runs out wide and bravely smothers the ball. Great goaltending.
22 minutes: Liverpool are slowly getting into this game and Enderby opens up the Chelsea defense with a lovely little pass to Haug, but Lawrence makes an outstanding sliding shot to deny the Norwegian!
20 minutes: A devastating Chelsea counter-attack almost ended in a goal! Kirby breaks through at speed, feeding Macario, but the Brazilian-born American can’t beat Bonner, who gets a decisive touch to take the sting out of the Chelsea striker’s strike.
18 minutes: First bit of calm play from Liverpool’s midfield as Nagano finds Holland but again Carter is there to snuff out any danger.
15 minutes: “I have a night of women’s football coming up, I watched the first half of the SWPL game between Glasgow City and Celtic,” emails Gordon. “It’s difficult to compare the standards of the top SWPL teams and the top WSL teams, but Glasgow City made it to the UWCL play-off round this season, the same stage Manchester United crashed out at. It will be interesting to see pre-season friendlies between some of the Scottish and English women’s club teams. Anyway, my first observation from tonight’s WSL match is that Chelsea’s bench is pretty weak in terms of attacking options.”
Agree that it would be nice to see some cross-pollination between the two leagues, even if it’s just in the preseason. And I’m also surprised Hayes doesn’t have a more attacking bench with the goal difference factor. But then Chelsea are overwhelmed by injuries.
13 minutes: On a rare Liverpool counter-attack, Enderby threatens to break at speed on goal, but Carter puts the extra effort on and fires home a superb strike. The Chelsea defender has been so impressive this season in Bright’s absence.
I loved this interview with the Lioness in March.
11 minutes: So almost 2-0 to Chelsea. A superbly thrown ball from Macario finds Nusken, who accelerates her run to perfection, but Mika gets down and finger-tips the shot before Hinds clears the line!
10 minutes: Interestingly, Chelsea’s Carter was not interested in celebrating the goal. Instead, she scooped the ball out of the net and sent her side back to the halfway line. Goal difference is important in this title race, don’t forget.
This is the live table assuming the game ends at 1-0.
GOAL! Liverpool 0-1 Chelsea (Beaver-Jones 9)
That’s eight WSL goals for Beaver-Jones for the season now, heading straight from a corner! Clarke lost his marker and Beaver-Jones found some space just in front of goal and curled a header into the corner. Could it be that Mika came for this?
7 minutes: Liverpool play with a back five tonight, but with the ball often one of the central defenders slips into the middle of the line. It’s often Gemma Bonner, making her 150th appearance for Liverpool tonight, and after some heavy pressure, Bonner picks up the loose ball and tries her luck from distance, but the shot goes over the bar.
5 minutes: Beaver-Jones looks sharp for Chelsea on the left wing. That flank looks the most likely source of the opening goal.
3 minutes: Niamh Charles, who started her career at Liverpool, gets forward from the left for Chelsea but her cross is too deep and the Reds clear it.
Peeeeeep! And off we go to Prenton Park.
Milly Bright is in the Chelsea XI for the first time since November, by the way. What a toy she is.
Three teams in the WSL that qualify for the Champions League, and third-placed Arsenal are too far ahead of Liverpool at this stage, but it has been a brilliant season for Liverpool, who are fifth. They will move level on points with fourth-placed Manchester United with a win tonight.
Here’s a decent stat from Liverpool: Manager Matt Beard took charge of Chelsea 23 times in the first two seasons of the WSL in 2011 and 2012 before joining Liverpool. Since his departure, no manager has inflicted more away defeats on the Blues than Beard (three).
Without Lauren James in the composition of Chelsea! Only City’s Bunny Shaw has scored more goals in the WSL this season, with the England superstar scoring a hat-trick against Liverpool last time out.
James didn’t train last week as he nursed an injury and despite his performance against Barcelona, maybe she aggravated something in that game?
Myra Ramirez, Chelsea’s January signing who signed for a UK record transfer fee of £384,000, remains on the sidelines. It’s another blow for Hayes.
The teams!
Preamble
And then there were two. with Arsenal faltered dramatically against Everton on Sunday Manchester City and Chelsea once against them stand alone at the top of the WSL pile and ready to challenge for the title.
Most teams have two games left. Thanks to their qualification to the semi-finals of the Champions League – where they were controversially discarded from defending champions Barcelona on Saturday – Chelsea have two games in hand to make up six points from City. Points are important, of course, but goal difference looks set to be vital too, so even if Chelsea take a comfortable lead tonight, don’t expect them to ease up.
Not that Chelsea’s two games will be easy. Away to Liverpool, who have lost just one league game (to City) since January, and away to FA Cup finalists Tottenham next Wednesday. Ahhh.
The pressure is on. That should be a cracker.
Kickoff: 19:00 BST.
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