Vixens struggle in first tie as in-form league leaders Chelsea win 4-0 with a double from Drew Spence plus goals from Ji So-Yun and Gemma Davison.
After a disappointing match against Frankfurt in the Champions League, Bristol Academy started their league campaign today with a home fixture against Chelsea. The away side started comfortably, having a number of early chances. Bristol’s solid defence for the first 20 minutes came undone when Chelsea scored their first, after a cross fell kindly to So-Yun who fired home from 12 yards.
The blues second, quickly followed when Spence headed past Earps after a cross from the right. Chelsea continued to press with Davison making a surging run through the middle, passing several Bristol defenders to slot it past Mary Earps making it 3-0 to the visitors before the break.
After the interval both teams started brightly with chances coming from both sides. Chelsea’s best chance came when Aluko shot after a low cross from the right beat everyone except Grace McCatty, who cleared it off the line.
Bristol Academy created more attacking play in the second half but lacked the final ball. Both teams continued to push for chances and Chelsea got their fourth after a McCatty mistake fell to Spence to grab her second of the game.
Bristol boss Dave Edmondson insisted a sub-par first-half performance cost his team, even if they did improve after the interval.
He said: “Being the underdog is not an excuse. We paid the price for a poor spell in the first half when we conceded three goals, and that’s not good enough.”
“This season we are going to need all of our players to be right on top of their game for 90 minutes, but we had some who switched off for a spell.”
“We sat off too deep and showed Chelsea too much respect which cost us three goals.”
“At half-time we talked about the need to get on the front foot as we were dropping back too much, and I think we did that in the second half and made things harder for Chelsea.”
“We aren’t going to create 15 chances in any game this season, so the ones we do create need to be better.”
After crashing out of both cups in the space of a week and not getting the perfect start in the league Bristol look to bounce back in their next fixture against Arsenal on the 15th of April.
Chelsea Ladies FC Goal Scorers: So-Yun 22′, Spence 29′,90′, Davison 32′
Teams:
Bristol Ladies Academy: Mary Earps, Loren Dykes, Lauren Townsend, Jasmine Matthews, Grace McCatty (c), Hayley Ladd, Christie Murray (Nadia Lawrence 63), Nikki Watts (Gabby Bird 88), Sophie Ingle, Angharad James, Georgia Evans
Unused subs Alice Evans, Izzy Dalton, Frankie Fantom-Brown, Sharla Passariello, Alex Hurst
Yellow Card: Evans
Chelsea Hedvig Lindahl; Ana Borges, Niamh Fahey, Mille Bright, Claire Rafferty; Katie Chapman (c), Ji So-Yun (Laura Coombs 65), Drew Spence; Eniola Aluko (Gilly Flaherty 75), Gemma Davison, Marija Banusic (Jackie Groenen 58)
Unused subs Marie Hourihan, Hannah Blundell, Anne Meiwald, Millie Farrow
Attendance 645