{"id":572960,"date":"2026-03-29T22:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T22:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572960\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T22:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T22:40:07","slug":"sam-kerr-and-ellie-carpenter-return-to-spark-chelsea-womens-super-league-win-over-aston-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572960\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr and Ellie Carpenter return to spark Chelsea Women’s Super League win over Aston Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Kerr has rebounded in style from the Matildas’ Asian Cup final disappointment by spearheading Chelsea’s crucial Women’s Super League victory over Aston Villa.<\/p>\n

The Australian captain scored a superb first-half goal and linked up with Australia teammate Ellie Carpenter to create the Blues’ late winner for Sjoeke N\u00fcsken in a thrilling 4-3 victory at their Kingsmeadow home.<\/p>\n

The goal ensured the champions just about managed to cling on to their distant hopes of retaining the crown but, more importantly, boosted their push for Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n

Eight days on and 17,000 kilometres away from the scene of last weekend’s final defeat to Japan in Sydney<\/a>, Kerr and Carpenter both looked sharp after their exhausting tournament.<\/p>\n

Do you have a story idea about women in sport?<\/p>\n

Email us abcsport5050@your.abc.net.au<\/a><\/p>\n

Bompastor decided to start Kerr for only the second time in her post-injury comeback season, during which she has featured 13 times off the bench.<\/p>\n

And she was rewarded when 32-year-old Kerr netted her third WSL goal this season, and 11th in all competitions as the Blues’ leading 2025-26 scorer.<\/p>\n

After Chasity Grant had given Villa a surprise lead, Kerr equalised in the 20th minute, latching on to N\u00fcsken’s pinpoint through ball, beating the offside trap and firing left-footed past goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck.<\/p>\n

It was Kerr’s first league goal since November and it kick-started the Blues, who quickly went further ahead with a glancing header from Naomi Girma and a brilliant left-foot strike from player of the match Lauren James.<\/p>\n

But Chelsea nerves were left jangling as a quickfire double in the space of three minutes from Villa’s Kirsty Hanson left the scores locked at 3-3 at the break.<\/p>\n

Chelsea laboured for a winner after half-time but, in the 82nd minute, a neatly timed midfield interception from Carpenter saw her find Kerr, who with back to goal, teed up N\u00fcsken perfectly to curl home the winner.<\/p>\n

“[There was] a lot of joy and some relief,” coach Sonia Bompastor said.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“We are fighting for Champions League places and this win is huge. You could see the celebrations after the winning goal reflected that.”<\/p>\n

Even though the win moves Chelsea back into second on 40 points, the gap to leaders Manchester City is still nine points with only three matches left.<\/p>\n

Arsenal is third on 38 points, but with two games in hand.<\/p>\n

Kerr looks to be in fine form as Chelsea seek to overturn a 3-1 deficit against Arsenal in their Champions League quarterfinal second leg at Stamford Bridge on Thursday morning AEST.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr has rebounded in style from the Matildas’ Asian Cup final disappointment by spearheading Chelsea’s crucial Women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[11184,64,63,6187,132254,596,44964,44965,281133,85,106080],"class_list":["post-572960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-aston-villa","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chelsea","tag-ellie-carpenter","tag-football","tag-matildas","tag-sam-kerr","tag-sjoeke-nusken","tag-sports","tag-womens-super-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572960","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=572960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}