How did the Manchester derby swing from red to blue in the first half?

And what did Chelsea do to adjust to West Ham?

Chelsea and Manchester City continue to go blow for blow in the title race with City setting the tone on Saturday lunchtime as they beat Manchester United. Chelsea responded with a 2-0 win over West Ham but both games had wobbly moments for the two teams at the top of the table.

How did Manchester United initially limit Manchester City?

Manchester United completed their trio of 3-1 away defeats against the top three in the WSL as they lost to Manchester City at the Etihad over the weekend. Jess Park had given City a two goal lead by half-time with Bunny Shaw scoring within a minute of the restart to ensure the game was dead and buried. But Manchester City did not have a shot until the 27th minute of the game.

United did what a lot of teams have looked to do recently and focused on blocking off Yui Hasegawa as City built up from the back. The fact that Laia Aleixandri had to withdraw from the starting XI close to kick-off helped United in this regard with Aleixandri being a key part of City’s build-up. Parris focused on pressing either Alanna Kennedy or Alex Greenwood leaving Toone free to just sit on Hasegawa. It is telling that the first time City managed to get a shot off it was because Toone had jumped to press the centre-backs, leaving Hasegawa free to get away from her.

Going forward, United put City under pressure by looking to either build-up by using Toone or Lisa Naalsund as a pivot to play the ball out wide from central midfield. Bunny Shaw did a similar job on Katie Zelem to what Toone was doing for Hasegawa, cutting off passes to her. But United also focused on playing long balls in behind quickly, in particular for Geyse, who firmly got the better of Leila Ouahabi going forward to run onto. 

United looked pretty settled in their game plan until Mary Earps played a ball out that simply was not on and nearly generated a costly turnover on the edge of the area. In reaction, Earps ended up kicking long twice and both times poorly. The turnover, aided by Bunny Shaw coming back from an offside position, allowed City to attack with United out of shape as the team had pushed up to the left hand side of the pitch for the goal kick. United tend to lose their shape pretty easily and that was the case here as Geyse failed to track Leila’s run and Zelem lost Jess Park, who volleyed home. From there, we saw United’s familiar collapse.

If United had higher quality forwards, maybe they would have generated better chances from the areas Geyse was able to get them in. As it was a lapse in concentration in both build up and out of possession led to that first concession, which they struggled to come back from.

How did Chelsea adjust tactically to deal with West Ham?

Chelsea were somewhat fortuitous to come away from a trip to the Chigwell Construction Stadium with three points after a dogged West Ham team caused them a large number of problems. Rehanne Skinner’s side had a goal wrongly called offside whilst there were also good chances for Kirsty Smith and Vivianne Asseyi in the first half.

West Ham caused Chelsea problems with their shape. Despite setting up in a back three, when building up from goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold, Shelina Zadorsky peeled out to the left back position with left wingback Kirsty Smith tucking in. This gave West Ham a natural overload in the midfield where Jelena Cankovic and Melanie Leupolz were playing for Chelsea. Cankovic did not know whether to track Hayashi or Smith, with more space being generated by Vivanne Asseyi dropping back to drag Ashley Lawrence out of position at right back.

These overloads meant that West Ham could progress the ball down their less congested right hand side before capitalising on runs coming from those central areas where they had a player advantage.

Chelsea dealt with this at half-time by simply switching to a back three themselves. Niamh Charles became a left-sided centre-back with Johanna Rytting-Kaneryd moving to play as the left wing-back. This gave Lawrence the freedom to follow Smith’s movement with Kadeisha Buchanan behind her to mark Asseyi. 

Aided by the fresh legs Chelsea brought on in the second half, the shift in system limited West Ham to three low quality shots and attempts to play the ball quicker in behind.