Chelsea go goal-crazy (again)<\/p>\n
Can anyone stop Chelsea? With Sunday\u2019s 6-0 rout away to Charlton Athletic, the league leaders made it seven BWSL wins on the spin \u2013 rendering the opening-weekend draw with Aston Villa an even more distant memory. They\u2019ve recorded those seven victories by an aggregate scoreline of 26-3, racking up 15 goals in their last three games alone.<\/p>\n
Neither Tottenham Hotspur nor Manchester City are far off, but Chelsea are currently the only team in the BWSL or BWSL2 averaging three or more goals per game this season \u2013 and they\u2019re doing that quite comfortably too, averaging 3.37. Then again, maybe we shouldn\u2019t be surprised: the Blues were the last side to average three or more goals per game over the course of a full BWSL campaign (3.22 en route to the title in 2023\/24).<\/p>\n
Also noteworthy is how well they\u2019re spreading the goals around. Chelsea have had 13 different BWSL scorers this term, with six of them finding the net at least twice \u2013 and top scorer Melvine Malard (six goals) striking four times in the last two games.<\/p>\n
Man City\u2019s main two into double figures<\/p>\n
Man City stayed hot on Chelsea\u2019s heels with a 2-1 win at London City Lionesses \u2013 and, as one has come to expect, Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp both played integral parts as their side got back on track. The pair are the first two players to reach 10 goals and assists combined in this season\u2019s BWSL.<\/p>\n
Off the back of her third-placed finish at the Ballon d\u2019Or reinforcing what we already knew \u2013 that she\u2019s one of the very best strikers in the world \u2013 Shaw moved to nine goals in eight BWSL appearances with the opener on Sunday, taking her to 10 goal contributions overall thanks to her one assist so far.<\/p>\n
And it was apt that Shaw\u2019s deadlock-breaker should have been set up by Hemp \u2013 who, in notching the winner just moments after the Lionesses had drawn themselves level, made it five goals and five assists in seven outings this campaign. It\u2019s the second time this term that she\u2019s scored and assisted in the same match, also doing so in last month\u2019s 4-2 triumph over Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Villa show ultimate efficiency<\/p>\n
Aston Villa have made a bit of a habit of frustrating the pre-season title favourites so far, and they continued their solid start to the season by holding Arsenal to a 1-1 draw at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday \u2013 having done likewise to Chelsea on the opening weekend.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, Villa clinched a point while having a solitary shot against the Gunners. Chasity Grant took full advantage to put the visitors ahead \u2013 and they almost held onto that lead, Alessia Russo bailing Arsenal out five minutes from time.<\/p>\n
Up until then, Villa had stayed in front through a backs-to-the-wall defensive performance backed up by the goalkeeping heroics of Akane Okuma \u2013 who posted 1.36 goals prevented (relative to expected goals on target faced) in her latest impressive performance since arriving in the summer.<\/p>\n
Asseyi does something no one did last season<\/p>\n
Viviane Asseyi has started the season in fine form, taking her 2026\/27 BWSL tally to five goals with a brace in West Ham United\u2019s 4-1 thrashing of Liverpool, the first of those goals coming from the penalty spot.<\/p>\n
And that penalty was a significant one: it\u2019s the second spot-kick Asseyi has won this term \u2013 no BWSL player has won multiple penalties in a campaign since 2024\/25.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s mark of how hard to defend against the former France winger is \u2013 as further exemplified by her average of 2.0 dribbles completed per 90, ranking towards the higher end among BWSL players.<\/p>\n
Neville still No1<\/p>\n
Charlton Athletic are still searching for their first point since returning to the BWSL \u2013 but it\u2019s not for the want of trying, especially not in the case of Ashleigh Neville, who continues to what she does best.<\/p>\n
The experienced full-back leads the way for tackles per 90 in the BWSL with 5.3 \u2013 at least 0.8 more than any other player in the division \u2013 having made five challenges in Charlton\u2019s 6-0 drubbing by Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Neville has picked up where she left off last season, when she topped the BWSL tackling charts by a fair distance with 6.1 per 90. Indeed, she\u2019s placed in the top two for that metric in each of the last five top-flight campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea go goal-crazy (again) Can anyone stop Chelsea? With Sunday\u2019s 6-0 rout away to Charlton Athletic, the league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-950977","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\/950977","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=950977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}