Chelsea booked their place in the Conti Cup final for the fifth season in succession after a narrow 1-0 win over Man City on Thursday night.
Lauren James opened the scoring after nine minutes, with the England forward’s strike the decisive one, as City were unable to capitalise on a dominant second half at Joie Stadium.
Meanwhile, Alex Greenwood was denied a last-minute penalty after she appeared to be brought down inside the box after a chaotic scramble.
The result extinguishes City’s hopes of achieving a treble this season, but keeps Chelsea’s hopes of achieving a quadruple in Emma Hayes’ final months in charge of the Blues very much intact.
They progress to the final, where they will face Arsenal at Molineux on Sunday March 31.
How Chelsea booked another Conti Cup final spot
Bunny Shaw’s goal after only 14 minutes had settled the crunch WSL match between the teams at Kingsmeadow a day shy of three weeks earlier – and Man City looked keen to strike another early blow, this time on home soil.
The intensity of their press was high from the off and Shaw had two chances to give the hosts the lead inside five minutes; she lashed one into the side-netting, before meeting Lauren Hemp’s clipped cross and guiding a header across the face of goal.
But with their first foray forward, Chelsea took the lead. Mayra Ramirez led an attack after Erin Cuthbert seized on a rushed pass and laid the ball off the James, whose shot took a slight touch off Alex Greenwood’s boot and beat Khiara Keating at her near post.
The Blues clearly had more pep in their step after the opener and they frustrated City after that, giving them much less space to operate in, which greatly reduced the fluency of their attack.
It returned after the break, though, and – had it not been for Hannah Hampton – City might well have turned the game in their favour. She made two saves to deny Shaw from almost identical positions, while also impressively saving Hemp’s first-time shot and then smothering the follow-up.
The efforts that came afterwards from Shaw, Chloe Kelly and Filippa Angeldahl lacked composure and made the goalkeeper’s job a simple one.
As the chances came and went, it became clearer that it wasn’t going to be the hosts’ night – and when Greenwood went down amid a late, late scramble for an equaliser and no penalty was awarded, that was confirmed.
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