Chelsea Women reach sixth straight League Cup final with West Ham win | OneFootball

Sonia Bompastor praised the impact of the midfielder Keira Walsh for bringing “serenity” to the side after the new recruit made her first start for Chelsea in a 2-0 win against West Ham to reach the League Cup final.

“She brings a lot of calmness in possession and serenity to the team,” Bompastor said of the England international. “I’m also really pleased to have depth in my squad … and having Keira has such a big impact.”

The home side cruised into the League Cup final for a record sixth consecutive season after first-half goals from Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Sjoeke Nüsken secured the win.

Chelsea have won the League Cup only twice and not since 2021, having lost three finals in a row. You could argue it is the least important of domestic competitions, but the more something eludes a team the more they want it.

The chances of West Ham troubling the Women’s Super League leaders were slim. The two sides had met four times in the League Cup (twice at the semi-final stage) before this meeting at a shivering Kingsmeadow, with Chelsea winning all four games by an aggregate score of 19-2.

There were five changes to the side that sealed a 1-0 win against Aston Villa in the league on Sunday but such is Chelsea’s depth that it was not a weakened team. Chelsea’s other new acquisition – the USA defender Naomi Girma, who signed for a world‑record fee of £890,000 – is not yet ready for the bench having been in the middle of the US off-season. But she was sitting in the stands between the rested Lucy Bronze, and Zecira Musovic, who announced on Monday that she is pregnant.

Despite utterly dominating proceedings, it took 20 minutes for the rejigged home team to make a breakthrough against the side they put five past in January. A clearance landed at the feet of Rytting Kaneryd, who swiped it in at the near post. Before the half‑hour Chelsea doubled their lead as Nüsken and Guro Reiten muscled Eva Nyström off the ball on the edge of West Ham’s area before the former rounded the goalkeeper Kinga Szemik and rolled the ball into the net.

The hour brought a double change for Chelsea that would put a chill into any team battling to get back into a game, with Aggie Beever-Jones and Lauren James refreshing the home attack.

“We were playing home and I think we had a good first half in terms of result and performance,” Bompastor said. “At half‑time we were leading the game 2-0 and I think it was good enough.”

It took until the 78th minute for West Ham to muster a shot on target amid the Chelsea onslaught, which they did well to contain. Manuela Paví found Kirsty Smith wide on the right but the angle got too tight and it was easy for Hannah Hampton when the shot did come in.

Chelsea pushed to extend their lead but the West Ham defence stood firm, with a clean sheet in the second half representing a small win to take away from Kingsmeadow and into the league.

“We’ve had the whole squad involved in getting us to this point and tonight, obviously, we were disappointed with the loss and we wanted to be in a final,” the West Ham manager, Rehanne Skinner, said.

“We gave it a really good go. We’re a bit disappointed with the way that we conceded the goals because we got caught on the ball a little bit and could have avoided that.”

Chelsea will play the winner of the game on Thursday night between Arsenal and Manchester City – the final on Saturday 15 March at Pride Park being Bompastor’s chance to lift her first piece of silverware with the London club.

Header image: [Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images/Reuters]