Sonia Bompastor, the Chelsea head coach, said the women\u2019s game needs to be shown \u201cmore respect\u201d after the decision to rule out Veerle Buurman\u2019s goal in the first half of the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final was not overturned by the video assistant referee.<\/p>\n
Buurman leapt and nodded in and looked to have halved the hosts\u2019 lead, but the referee, Alina Pesu, \u00adimmediately ruled out the effort for a \u00adperceived foul on Laia Codina and the VAR did not deem it a clear and obvious error.<\/p>\n
It was an incredibly soft decision, with Codina not jumping to challenge for the ball and Buurman\u2019s hands on her shoulders as she rose to head in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always more difficult to complain about the decisions when you\u2019ve lost the game but to be \u00adhonest, it\u2019s not good enough,\u201d said Bompastor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really need to find solutions. In the quarter-final of the \u00adChampions League you need to respect the \u00adwomen\u2019s game more, you need to respect the players more, because they work hard every week to put in a good performance on the pitch. For sure, the first goal is a goal. I don\u2019t see with the VAR how you cannot allow that goal. That\u2019s a shame, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veerle Buurman heads home but the goal was ruled out. Photograph: Izzy Poles\/AMA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Chelsea manager was also frustrated late on, when her side had another effort ruled out, although that one was less controversial, with Kadeisha Buchanan having ploughed her foot into the goalkeeper Anneke Borbe as she put the ball over the line.<\/p>\n
Asked about what they get told when these decisions are made, Bompastor said: \u201cNothing, nothing. It\u2019s always the same. When you go to them and you ask them to check the situation to make sure they make the right decision, they just always say: \u2018Yeah, we are checking\u2019, but they made the wrong decision and \u00adnothing changed. To be honest, when a human makes a mistake I think you can understand it a little bit more than when there is the VAR \u2013 that\u2019s really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added the women\u2019s game \u201cdeserves the best referees\u201d from the men\u2019s or women\u2019s games and the \u201cright people\u201d checking decisions via VAR.<\/p>\n
The Frenchwoman was right to feel aggrieved by the decision to rule out Buurman\u2019s effort. Chelsea were \u00adbattling and resilient at the Emirates Stadium, twice \u00adseeing the ball come back off the inside of the same post in the opening 10 minutes through Lauren James and Alyssa Thompson, but Arsenal settled soon after and took control. A Stina Blackstenius header and an impressive long-range effort from Chloe Kelly made it 2-0 going into the second half and the deficit was \u00adeventually reduced through a moment of magic from James, who picked up the ball after a corner from the right was nodded away by Beth Mead, took a touch, picked her spot and curled a dipping effort into the top corner from 20 yards.<\/p>\n
The quality of the goals was a highlight. Alessia Russo\u2019s effort to restore the home team\u2019s two-goal cushion was also sublime.<\/p>\n
The forward spun the ball up from her feet with her first touch and powered it in with her second, following a pass from Blackstenius, for her eighth Champions League goal of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s so good \u2013 with different finishes, from close, from further out, volleys, different angles \u2013 she\u2019s really, really good,\u201d said Ren\u00e9e Slegers. \u201cWhat you see now is that when she gets into the right spaces with the right timing she has so much \u00adconviction in what she\u2019s doing and I think that\u2019s what\u2019s taken her to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauren James (right) gave Arsenal problems and made it 2-1 in the second half. Photograph: Glyn Kirk\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Arsenal are riding high in a competition they showed last season they can go all the way in, and they take a two-goal lead into the second leg at Stamford Bridge next week but the tie is far from over.<\/p>\n
Last season the Blues overturned a two-goal deficit against Manchester City at the same stage by winning 3-0 at home. This is a depleted Chelsea squad though, one that showed up with a strong starting XI but a weak bench with four teenagers (Gabriella Storey, 16, Chloe Sarwie, 17, Lois Shooter, 18, and Lexi Potter, 19) alongside Ellie Carpenter, who was fresh off a flight back from Australia after the Asia Cup final.<\/p>\n
In this context, Chelsea\u2019s two dropped points against London City Lionesses on Saturday was less of a shock, and their dominant League Cup final win over Manchester United a week prior and their performance against Arsenal here were both hugely impressive and can give them a boost before the second leg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sonia Bompastor, the Chelsea head coach, said the women\u2019s game needs to be shown \u201cmore respect\u201d after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-562399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}