Chelsea Ladies surprised the 5,000 fans at the Emirates stadium last night when they scored an early goal against league champions Arsenal.

But the opener could not secure a win as the Blues went on to concede four goals before the 90 minutes came to a close, helping Arsenal secure their fifth consecutive league title.

It took just 16 minutes for the deadlock to be broken when Emma Whitter broke down the right and launched a perfectly placed lob into the back of Emma Byrne's goal.

But Arsenal proved their right to the top of the league with a retaliation that saw the scores evened within a matter of minutes.

Kelly Smith sent a precision pass into Karen Carney's path inside the box for the England international to slot the ball beyond an oncoming Siobhan Chamberlain.

Minutes later Carney burst into the Chelsea box and attempted to send the ball across the face of goal. But a sliding Casey Stoney caught the ball with her hand and forced the referee to award a penalty.

Lianne Sanderson accepted the challenge and calmly stepped up to take the spot-kick, but Chamberlain guessed her target correctly and dived to left, stopping the ball with a fantastic save.

It wasn't long before Arsenal had another chance from the spot as Emma Delves brought Kelly Smith down inside the box. This time Smith took the resulting penalty and sent the ball behind the line for Arsenal's second.

Kim Little then increased her side's lead in the second half when she latched onto a Smith run and finished the move by tapping the ball past Chamberlain, 3-1.

With 10 minutes remaining, Carney finished off a formidable performance with the best goal of the game after trading passes with Smith before smashing the ball past Chamberlain, an end to the evening that saw Carney crowned woman of the match.

Chelsea Chamberlain, Delves, Perry, Cooper, Stoney, Davies, Larkin, Owen, Aluko, Whitter, Buet.

By Christian Collison