Chelsea maintained their perfect start to the season in the Women’s Super League, beating Aston Villa 3-1 at Villa Park on Sunday afternoon.
Villa started the game brightly, attacking in numbers and preventing Chelsea from going forward.
However, Chelsea had the first sight of goal in the eighth minute. Aggie Beever-Jones sprinted behind Villa’s defence, but the flag was raised for offside.
Guro Reiten and Catarina Macario almost combined to open the scoring for Chelsea, but the latter could not hit the target.
They opened the scoring in the 22nd minute with a nice team move. Macario weaved past her markers and passed to Ellie Carpenter. She put the ball through to Aggie Beever-Jones to score.
Villa quickly sought to respond and were rewarded for their efforts on 34 minutes, with Chasity Grant putting the ball on the plate for Ebony Salmon to whip it home with an unbelievable strike.
The hosts looked likely to take the lead before half-time, but goalkeeper Hannah Hampton did well to preserve the scoreline.
Villa almost made it 2-1 just after the interval, when a free-kick was delivered into the area only for Rachel Daly to collide with the woodwork as she jumped to meet the cross.
Chelsea regained the lead in the 55th minute as Keira Walsh’s shot was deflected into the net by Missy Bo Kearns.
Macario attempted to double the away side’s lead, having been teed up by Sam Kerr, but goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck parried her effort away.
Beever-Jones missed a good chance to seal the victory for the visitors, failing to hit the target from close range.
Kerr sealed the victory deep into stoppage time to record her 100th goal for Chelsea.
