Battling City clinch Champions League quarter-final first leg win

With both sides facing each other for the first time in the Champions League, a Vivianne Miedema double handed Nick Cushing his first win upon returning as Interim Head Coach.

Chelsea came into the game unbeaten across all competitions but an inspired Miedema and Kerolin Nicoli display was too much for the visitors to handle.

Miedema showed her class with two composed finishes, the first one on the volley before sweeping beyond the diving Hannah Hampton in the dying minutes of the match.

what happened

We looked to make home advantage count in the opening exchanges with Jill Roord winning the ball high up in the Chelsea half, before teeing up Kerolin Nicoli to try her luck from distance, but her effort flew narrowly over the bar.

Lily Murphy then got her first chance to run at Lucy Bronze just before the half-hour mark when we denied a Chelsea counter-attack but after cutting inside, her curling effort was well held by Hampton.

Moments later the visitors carved open their first chance through a wicked Lauren James cross, but Macario’s diving header at the near post failed to trouble Ayaka Yamashita.

An opening goal was what we were after as we began the second half in the same high-intensity fashion.

Our first chance came when Kerolin broke quickly and fed in Miedema whose cutback was controlled and dragged wide by Kerstin Casparij.

But we finally got our well-deserved opening goal right on the stroke of the hour mark thanks to Miedema.

A series of crosses and corners were whipped into the Chelsea area and never truly cleared by the visitors, and after Hampton tipped Laia Aleixandri’s header onto the crossbar, Miedema was on hand to volley into the roof of the net.

Our number six was causing all sorts of problems following her introduction at the break. She had Millie Bright back-pedalling towards her box from the halfway line, but her dipping effort from distance was well kept out by Hampton.

As the game crept into the final 10, Chelsea came close to levelling the match when Johanna Rytting Kaneryd cannoned one off the woodwork from an acute angle.

Wieke Kaptein managed to find herself in acres of space behind the backline soon after but while her shot bounced awkwardly in front of Yamashita, she scooped the ball away from the danger area.

Chelsea simply could not deal with Miedema in the second half though, and she doubled both hers and City’s tally for the evening as stoppage time approached.

It all came about when Kerolin was direct down the right and ran at the Chelsea defence before cutting the ball back to the Dutch international, who took one touch onto her left foot and stroked the ball beyond Hampton into the bottom right corner.

It means City take a two-goal lead to Stamford Bridge in Thursday’s second leg, with Nick Cushing’s side claiming a battling, and deserved, win.

Player Of The Match: Kerolin Nicoli

On an evening where any City player could’ve taken this title, it was an even tougher call between goalscorer Miedema and Kerolin, however, the Brazilian just edged it.

Kerolin had endless amounts of energy to burn up and down the pitch with her efforts being there for everyone to see at both ends of the pitch.

Her slick pass into Miedema for the second goal was a crucial moment, but her tackles and willingness to track back were a huge reason why we were so impressive tonight.

HOW WE LINED up

Nick Cushing made three changes from the Subway Cup final defeat on Saturday with Aoba Fujino and Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw missing out through injury.

The back five of City were unchanged from the weekend with Laia Aleixandria continuing to lead from the defence.

Yui Hasegawa sat just in front of the back four, allowing Jill Roord and Jess Park to venture further forward and support the front three of Lily Murphy, Mary Fowler and Kerolin Nicoli.

City XI: Yamashita, Casparij, Prior, Aleixandri (C), Ouahabi, Hasegawa, Park (Blindkilde-Brown 75), Roord, Murphy (Miedema 46), Fowler (Coombs 64), Kerolin Nicoli (Layzell 89)

Subs: Keating, Startup, Wienroither

Chelsea XI: Hampton, Bronze, Bright, Bjorn, Baltimore, Cuthbert, Walsh (Nusken 58), Beever-Jones, Macario (Kaptein 46), James (Kaneryd 58), Ramirez (Hamano 72)

Subs: Spencer, Lawrence, Charles, Jean-Francois, Rytting, Fishel

up next

For the third time in just over a week, we’ll face Chelsea once again, this time in the Women’s Super League, at the Etihad Stadium.

Kick-off in the WSL is scheduled for 14:30 (UK), while next Thursday’s Champions League second leg is at Stamford Bridge with a 20:00 kick-off (UK).