‘The better team won’: Emma Hayes reacts to Chelsea’s 4-1 thumping
In a recent Women’s Super League (WSL) match at the Emirates Stadium, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes criticised her team’s performance, labelling it as their worst in a long time. The match saw Arsenal secure a dominant 4-1 victory in front of a record-breaking WSL crowd of 59,042 spectators.
Beth Mead scored an impressive opening goal for Arsenal, setting the tone for the match. Chelsea managed to equalise with a goal from Johanna Rytting Kaneryd. However, Arsenal quickly regained control, scoring two goals in just two minutes. Amanda Ilestedt headed in one goal, while Alessia Russo contributed with a solo effort. Russo later converted a penalty, securing Arsenal’s comprehensive win, full bragging rights, and three valuable points in the WSL standings.
Emma Hayes reacts
“That’s as bad as I’ve seen us for a long time,” Hayes admitted after the match. “The better team won by a country mile. They bullied us. They dominated in the duels, all phases of our play were poor. That’s not us our best today, that’s probably us at our very worst.”
“Teams lose football matches. We’ve lost a football match, it’s not the end of the world. We haven’t lost the title today. We’ve lost three points,” Hayes added as she tried to look for perspective.
“They had four shots and three goals in the first half,” she explained. “They were extremely clinical and I felt like we got bullied in the duels all over the pitch. But I think we was too deep in the first half and invited pressure. [Arsenal] scored from there first chance which is poor form us, the second we got bullied and it was not an area for [Ann-Katrin Berger] to claim it.
“Then a simple ball in behind and our problems created us an uphill problem. Then we gave away a silly penalty, but fair play to Arsenal we did not compete anywhere – the whole team was poor.”
“You have to get beaten, you can’t go a whole season unbeaten, there’s lots of top teams,” she said.
“But what you cannot do is give away three goals before the half and then give a mindless fourth. You’re giving it up. I am not going to make excuses I will speak to the players tomorrow about it. We was well and truly beaten. We have to get back to our standards that was not our Chelsea standard and we have to control what we control.”
