Sam Kerr scored twice to match a club record as Chelsea took a significant step towards Champions League qualification with a clinical second-half performance to beat Everton.<\/p>\n
The Blues moved four points clear of Manchester United, who sit third, while Arsenal are a further point back in fourth with three games in hand.<\/p>\n
Kerr’s double, along with goals from Ellie Carpenter and Erin Cuthbert, meant a stunning strike from Yuka Momiki for Everton counted for little as Chelsea coasted to victory at Goodison Park.<\/p>\n
By reaching 63 goals in her career for Chelsea in the WSL, Kerr has matched former team-mate Fran Kirby’s record haul for the club.<\/p>\n
Chelsea went ahead when Kerr finished well after a good through pass from Cuthbert in the sixth minute, but the lead did not last long.<\/p>\n
That was because of an outstanding goal from Momiki, who spotted Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton had strayed off her line and fired in from 35 yards just four minutes later.<\/p>\n
Sonia Bompastor’s visitors had the better of the remainder of the opening half but could not find a way past Everton keeper Courtney Brosnan again before the break, with Keira Walsh, Alyssa Thompson and Sjoeke Nusken being denied.<\/p>\n
With Arsenal in Champions League action, this was a chance for Chelsea to extend their lead over the Gunners in the race for qualification into Europe’s elite competition for next season.<\/p>\n
They took it, with Kerr putting them back in front two minutes after the restart when she got on the end of an inch-perfect pass from Lauren James to finish first time from the left side of the area as Brosnan rushed out to try to close the angle.<\/p>\n
It was a huge blow for Everton because Maz Pacheco had missed a glorious chance moments earlier when she diverted a Toni Payne cross on to the bar and over with her knee from just a few yards out.<\/p>\n
Pacheco did clear one off the line to deny Kerr a hat-trick but Chelsea got their third in the 53rd minute as Carpenter’s deflected effort went over Brosnan after Thompson’s ball in.<\/p>\n
Cuthbert completed the scoring when she fired a half-volley past Brosnan from the edge of the box after Kerr had a header blocked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr scored twice to match a club record as Chelsea took a significant step towards Champions League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-551726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}