Chelsea manager Emma Hayes said that her whole team had performed poorly after The Blues lost the FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup final 3-1 to Arsenal at Selhurst Park this afternoon.
Sam Kerr’s second-minute header gave Chelsea the perfect start in South London but opponents Arsenal quickly turned the game on it’s head and they ended up cruising to a very routine victory.
Chelsea were barely a shadow of themselves after losing their early momentum to their opponents. Their performance was riddled with individual errors while they often resorted to long balls in the second half as they frantically looked to recover a two-goal deficit.
When speaking in the post-match press conference, Chelsea boss Hayes was brutal in her assessment of the game. She admitted that it was very difficult to single out any of her players for good performances.
“We scored early and were comfortable for 10 minutes but as soon as Arsenal got the equaliser, the momentum shifted,” Hayes said. “When you’ve won a lot like we have; I think we looked like a team that had won a lot and they hadn’t. I think that was a huge difference in the game today.
“It was just basics; the amount of one v one duels and first and second situations that they dominated today is the thing that I am most disappointed with.
“So many players played poorly, I don’t think anyone in our team played well today. When you have so much to do, I think the third goal killed the game off but for me, that wasn’t a defining moment in the game.
“I think sometimes losing games like this serve as a reminder of all of the work that you have to do to stay on top. Congratulations to Arsenal, they were by far the better team.”
Chelsea’s frailties resulted in Hayes making various tactical switches throughout the match. With The Blues failing to do the basics well, Hayes knew that she was challenged to turn things around.
She said “When your team is not at it and you have to work that hard as a coach, you already know you are going to have a tough day. It didn’t matter what I did today, it is about the basics in football.
“In the first half, you could see we were really struggling, we made the shift and it helped us for that period. The third goal then changed the narrative, no matter what you do come the second half, you are always chasing something. As you try to commit more numbers forward, doing that structurally means that you are going to take plenty of risks. I did that in the second half in the hope that we would perhaps get a goal back in the game which we didn’t.
“I don’t particularly want to be doing that; I was reacting quite rightly as my job to the team underperforming today.”
Chelsea return to action on Wednesday evening when they face Brighton & Hove Albion at Kingsmeadow in their latest Barclays Women’s Super League fixture.