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Sometimes football is a simple game. If one team has a deadly striker and the other does not, the outcome is often predictable.
Such was the case at Kingsmeadow.
Arsenal had 20 shots, 11 on target, but could not find the net, while hosts Chelsea had three on target and scored twice to clinch victory in their FA Cup fifth-round tie.
The second goal came from Sam Kerr, whose Blues scoring record now stands at a stunning 82 strikes in 100 matches.
Not even arriving back from the other side of the world barely 72 hours before kick-off, having played 270 minutes of football in her Australian homeland during the international break, could stop the 29-year-old.
Kerr played in all three of Australia’s Cup of Nations wins, culminating in a 3-0 success over Jamaica on Wednesday. By Sunday, she was playing the full 90 minutes in London and on target yet again.
“Even with jet lag, she’s better than you,” sang the delighted home crowd during a break in play, which drew a laugh and applause from the forward herself.
In her press conference afterwards, Kerr’s Chelsea manager Emma Hayes was equally full of praise.
“Some players get off a plane on Thursday night and complain about being tired on Friday – not her,” Hayes said. “She comes in, does everything necessary and lifts the spirit of everyone in the building.
“She is the best in the business, and it’s not just 82 goals in 100 games, it is the mentality. The spirit shown in challenging circumstances which, as a team, we showed better today.”
Arsenal must be particularly sick of the sight of Kerr, after her late equaliser earned Chelsea a WSL point at Emirates Stadium in January, kick-starting the Gunners’ poor form this year.
Their only wins in 2023 have come against lower league Leeds in the last round of the FA Cup and in two League Cup matches. They have the final of that competition next week against Kerr and Chelsea.
This game laid bare Arsenal’s attacking troubles, as they created the bulk of chances and best first-half openings.
However, without the absent frontline duo of Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema – sat side-by-side in the Kingsmeadow VIP area as they recover from ACL injuries – the Gunners lacked a cutting edge.
Arsenal did find Ann-Katrin Berger inspired in the Chelsea goal, with the German saving from Frida Maanum in the first minute before a double save late in the first half.
The second of those, at the feet of Caitlin Foord, was particularly brave from Berger, who showed why she has been nominated for the Best Fifa Women’s Goalkeeper award for the second successive year.
However Arsenal were also hamstrung by Stina Blackstenius’ wayward finishing, and having to continually adapt to plug the Mead and Miedema-shaped hole in attack. Full-back Katie McCabe was also deployed on the right wing, to minimal effect.
While Arsenal peppered Berger with shots in the final 35 minutes after going 2-0 down, they never looked like pulling level.
Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall, asked later whether it was too simple to just look at chances missed as the reason for defeat.
“If that’s too simple I apologise, but that’s how I see the game,” he said.
“It is unusual to have so many more chances than Chelsea at Kingsmeadow. We created enough to win the game, but they are brutally efficient, and we aren’t.
“If you’re a pessimist, after today you can think negative thoughts, or you can say next game we will score five goals, because we were so good today. It doesn’t guarantee anything but I am an optimist.
“It’s easy to think, when you don’t score chances, to start over again, but you have to keep going.”
It is now five games against Chelsea without victory for Eidevall’s side, since a 3-2 win in his first game in charge of Arsenal at the start of the 2019-20 season.
After the League Cup final, Arsenal and Chelsea face each other again in the WSL in May. Should they both reach the Champions League final, it will be five meetings this season.
There is no escape for Eidevall and Arsenal from the Blues and the deadly finishing of Kerr.
