Manchester United 0-6 Chelsea, Women’s Super League: Post-match reaction

Goals, goals, and more goals. That’s what Chelsea Women had in mind from kickoff, and it showed quickly as Mayra Ramírez got us the opening goal in less than two minutes of game time.

What a start ⚡️

Ramírez wasted no time for @chelseafcw!#BarclaysWSL pic.twitter.com/MB9V64L5cQ — Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) May 18, 2024

Chelsea were relentless, and Manchester United had no answers for that. We’d soon make good use of their confusion to put up another goal in the board, via Johanna Rytting Kaneryd.

Chelsea are not wasting any time!

JRK makes it two ✌️#BarclaysWSL pic.twitter.com/t4QN5fFbzf — Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) May 18, 2024

It was great to get these two early goals as Manchester United quickly adjusted once we got past the 10-minute mark. They were trying hard to exploit our left flank, which constantly drew central midfielder Melanie Leupolz to help both Guro Reiten and Niamh Charles with defending that side of the pitch.

Some though the chance to make it 3-0 wouldn’t come after Mayra Ramírez was basically harassed off the ball in the box and nothing was given to us. She would then prove us wrong by assisting Sjoeke Nüsken a few minutes later.

What a run from Ramírez and Nüsken is there to tap it home!#BarclaysWSL @ChelseaFCW pic.twitter.com/AklZiHEfnE — Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) May 18, 2024

Again, we couldn’t leave any room for Manchester City to even dream about getting the title away from us. Hence why we kept pushing forward, and Mayra got her second goal right after netting two assists.

No one can stop Ramírez today!

Running riot for @ChelseaFCW #BarclaysWSL pic.twitter.com/e5TX8FrPNC — Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) May 18, 2024

With Manchester City up 1-0 against Aston Villa in half-time, the first half scoreline meant they needed to win by seven goals to surpass us in the league table if we were to keep this four-goal advantage. Therefore we needed to work really hard to keep the clean sheet, and also still look for goals as making the most out of Mayra’s return was a clear winning plan for us.

United tried to come out of the tunnels all guns blazing. But such approach has its disadvantages, and Chelsea made sure they would pay for that with Melanie Leupolz scoring our fifth goal today.

Now that we had given Manchester City an entire Kilimanjaro to climb, we could breathe a bit better. Manchester United continued enjoying very lax refereeing from Rebecca Welch, who only gave Lucia García a yellow card after three other fouls that were bookable before. In the meantime Emma Hayes brought on Fran Kirby for her last minutes as a Chelsea Women player.

Amazingly enough Manchester City were faltering, as they allowed Aston Villa to tie the match 1-1 and then regained the lead via Lauren Hemp. At minute 78 of their match they needed seven goals to make up the goal difference to Chelsea, and eventually surpass us.

The final minutes were ones of nervy defending from Chelsea, doing everything they could to keep the clean sheet against United. But today was a day where everything would fall in the right place for the Blues, including a perfect goodbye for Super Fran.

It was then only a matter of keeping United goalless in a day which will be remembered for years by Chelsea Women fans. From those who just arrived to this amazing ride, to the ones who have been here since Tony Farmer’s days.

The moment the final whistle blew at Old Trafford! #BarclaysWSL pic.twitter.com/NhoArnK0nM — Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) May 18, 2024

Carefree!