Chelsea FC Women Bethany England praised Blues players past and present after our 4-0 victory against Aston Villa broke the record for the longest unbeaten run in the Women’s Super League.
Wednesday’s victory in the Midlands meant Chelsea have now gone 32 games and over two years unbeaten, breaking the record of 31 games previously held by Manchester City.Sam Kerr opened the scoring after just three minutes before she turned provider for England who headed home our second of the night.Second-half goals from Pernille Harder and captain Magda Eriksson secured our fifth consecutive league victory and England says it was a perfect night for the Blues.She said: ‘We were aware of it [the record], but it wasn’t something we were thinking about too much. We came here and we just wanted to get the job done. We wanted to put out a good performance, score some goals and we did that today. Keeping a clean sheet was also massive for us too.‘It’s a big achievement for the girls, past and present, to make that record stand and long may it continue.’
Chelsea have been ruthless in front of goal since returning from the Christmas break, netting an impressive 15 goals in our last four outings and England has put that down to a lot of hard work on the training pitch.She said: ‘We do a lot of work in training. Making sure we are working on movement, making connections with each other, keeping the ball moving quickly and finding that opportunity when it is the right time to go forward. I think we did that well.‘Credit to Villa, they did make it tough for us. It wasn’t an easy game but the more consistent we are being at the moment in training is now showing more on the pitch.’
While the likes of England, Kerr, Harder and Fran Kirby have been firing the goals in at one end, the Blues have been just as impressive at the other end.Chelsea have the meanest defence in the league, having conceded just six goals in our 11 league fixtures and England believes clean sheets could prove vital come the end of the campaign.The No.9 said: ‘We are really happy for Carly [Telford] coming in and getting a clean sheet. Clean sheets are big for us.‘As we’ve seen in this league before, it can come down to goal difference so I think the more we put in at one end and keep out of the other, the better it will be for us.’
- Chelsea Women are next in action on Sunday when we host Tottenham for a 12.30pm kick-off. The match can be watch on the BBC red button.