{"id":820918,"date":"2026-11-01T17:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T17:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820918\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T17:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T17:04:13","slug":"charlton-athletic-0-6-chelsea-melvine-malard-scores-twice-as-blues-return-to-top-of-wsl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820918\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlton Athletic 0-6 Chelsea: Melvine Malard scores twice as Blues return to top of WSL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chelsea returned to the top of the Women&#8217;s Super League with a thumping victory over bottom side Charlton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Blues scored four goals in the first 19 minutes at The Valley, leaving Karen Hills&#8217; side stunned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Katie McCabe crossed into the box and Nathalie Bjorn rose highest to send a looping header into the far corner after three minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Melvine Malard scored Chelsea&#8217;s second goal from close range as Anna Koivunen fumbled the ball into her own net.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lauren James&#8217; strike from the edge of the box was parried by Koivunen, but Ellie Carpenter was first to react to slot home for her second goal in as many games. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sonia Bompastor&#8217;s side kept pushing forward and Koivunen made two saves from Sandy Baltimore and Carpenter before Malard poked home for Chelsea&#8217;s fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Malard thought she had completed a 12-minute hat-tick but the goal was ruled out for a tight offside in a rare reprieve for Charlton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The only moment of disappointment for the Blues came when James had to be substituted after 35 minutes, having gone down when trying to run on to the ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the break, substitute Aggie Beever-Jones latched on to a clever flick from Keira Walsh to score her first goal since September 2025, further increasing Chelsea&#8217;s lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Giulia Dragoni scored her first Chelsea goal with a brilliant turn and finish to wrap up the victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chelsea are level on points with champions Manchester City but have a superior goal difference, while Charlton remain bottom of the league with zero points from eight games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea returned to the top of the Women&#8217;s Super League with a thumping victory over bottom side Charlton.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-820918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820918","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=820918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}