Chelsea show Sam Kerr v Vivianne Miedema talk is a mere sideshow | OneFootball

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Lewis Ambrose·21 January 2020

Chelsea show Sam Kerr v Vivianne Miedema talk is a mere sideshow

Article image:Chelsea show Sam Kerr v Vivianne Miedema talk is a mere sideshow

The two favourites for the FA Women’s Super League met on Sunday but the fixture itself wasn’t even given top billing.

No, as the game approached, the focus was on the argument over who had the better striker.


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Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema has been the WSL’s standout player over the past couple of years. Last season she netted 22 goals – a WSL record for a single season – and provided 10 assists as she inspired Arsenal to the title.

She has continued in the same vein in 2019/20 – her tally of 22 goals and assists after 12 matches is nine more than any other player in the league.

But Chelsea can now boast the signing of Sam Kerr. The Australian is the all-time record goalscorer in the NWSL, North America’s top league, at the age of 26. But she’s now a Blue, having joined Chelsea on 1 January.

So, as she prepared to face Miedema for the first time at club level, the question was whether or not this could become the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry of women’s football.

The answer is no.

A brilliant Chelsea showing was aided by Kerr’s first WSL goal – she nodded Chelsea into an early 2-0 lead – but this was a team performance of the highest order.

“If you took Miedema out of their team, how many goals would they have?” Chelsea boss Emma Hayes asked before the match.

“She has been the difference. Fair play, she is an unbelievable player, but we have got to make our multiple players count. It’s not just about ‘a Miedema’.

“I don’t think it’s about shutting one player down in our team. If you want to get tight on Beth England, you’ve got a problem with Sam Kerr, Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten or Ji [So-Yun]…”

It was England who scored the opener; Guro Reiten who created the first two goals, one with a smart pass, one with a sensational cross; and Ji who pulled the strings.

Then there was Sophie Ingle. An excellent performance from the midfielder was capped by a sensational long-range volley to send Chelsea three goals up after just 20 minutes.

Chelsea’s blistering start wasn’t the whole story, though, the rest was their superb defensive performance.

For the second time this season, they completely stifled Joe Montemurro’s Arsenal. The Australian coach admitted overthinking as he tackled the idea of competing with the team seen as Arsenal’s biggest challengers for the title.

“[The failings] were tactical today,” Montemurro told Tim Stillman of arseblog.

“The thought was to press a little higher up the pitch and to stop them playing through the middle and create overloads in the middle of the park, it didn’t work and I take full responsibility.”

The result was a quiet afternoon for Miedema, who missed one big chance at 3-0 but otherwise dropped deeper and deeper into midfield in attempt to help her team-mates get upfield. It didn’t work.

But this wasn’t a win for Kerr, or a defeat for Miedema, both of whom are fittingly eager to play down any talk of a personal rivalry or the chase for individual awards.

Article image:Chelsea show Sam Kerr v Vivianne Miedema talk is a mere sideshow

“I think we all know it’s all about popularity and I don’t post much on Instagram or Twitter, so that’s probably what went wrong,” Miedema said in an interview with Stillman after missing out on Fifa’s The Best XI for 2019.

“I don’t really care about individual awards to be honest, but I think it’s a joke.”

It was suitable, then, that Kerr didn’t dominate Sunday’s encounter but Chelsea did. They’ve beaten Arsenal twice this season, they remain unbeaten and a win in their game in hand will now send them top of the table.

The title race is alive and well and it doesn’t need an overblown individual battle to excite the minds of fans.


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