West Ham Women expert reacts as Chelsea dump side out of League Cup
We’re delighted to welcome Michelle Irons as our exclusive West Ham Women’s expert. Each week she’ll be giving her views on the biggest talking points at Victoria Road…
Michelle Irons has reacted after West Ham Women were eliminated from the Conti Cup by Chelsea earlier this month, praising the team performance despite the loss.
The Ironesses finished as leaders in Group E of the Conti Cup, but they could not deal with the quality of the Blues in the quarter-finals on 19 January at the Chigwell Construction Stadium.
The visitors ran out 4-2 winners, with Katerina Svitkova’s early equaliser and Halle Houssein’s late strike unable to stop West Ham from being dumped out of the Continental Tyres Cup.
Michelle Irons told West Ham Zone while reacting to the defeat: “This was a cold evening in Dagenham with a crowd of over 600 braving the conditions.
“A strong line-up against a quality Chelsea team, which showed a great attitude.
“It was an evenly matched contest in the opening 25 minutes, but Chelsea made the breakthrough with a well-worked counterattack.
“Svitkova showed her quality by cutting inside and placing it into the bottom corner shortly after, leaving Ann-Katrin Berger routed to the spot, and that certainly woke up the West Ham fans!
“We came out brightly in the second half, but Chelsea upped a gear and scored three goals within eight mins to end our cup campaign for this season.
“We went through the motions during the back end of the game, and Olli Harder made some changes and brought on Houssein, and she made an instant impact and bagged a debut goal.
“She showed great composure and confidence to put it away.
“An overall good team performance, but the quality and professionalism of Chelsea shone through.”
West Ham secured victories over Brighton and Hove Albion, London City Lionesses and Birmingham City in the group stages, but Chelsea were a mountain too high for them to climb.
They travel to Kingsmeadow on Wednesday (26 January) to face the same opponents in the Women’s Super League, and Harder and the ladies will be keen to get revenge.
West Ham have since bounced back with a 3-0 demolition of Everton in the league, and that should give them confidence heading into midweek’s clash against the Blues.
In other West Ham news, an amazing attacker is making personal arrangements for Hammers switch in January.
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