This weekend the Super League delivers the third of the four consecutive meetings between Chelsea and Manchester City.
When the planning stars were aimed at meeting each other four times in three days in three games, it was clear that there would be drama.
Chelsea pulled the first blood in this fight, won 2-1 and was securing the League Cup trophy in Pride Park. In a close game that could have go in all directions, the famous Chelsea Monster Mentality, as former boss Emma Hayes called it, got over the line.
That victory extended the unbeaten run from the blues to 31 games in all competitions (W29 D2) and put them about to write history with the longest unbeaten run by a WSL team – if they could avoid four days later versus city in the Champions League.
City, who had repaid Gareth Taylor from his management tasks, only five days before the cup final and Nick Cushing brought back to interim basis, denied them that piece of history in the first stage of their quarter-final draw.
Vivianne Miedema scored twice when City placed a huge dent in the hope of Chelsea to finally win the Champions League – a trophy that escaped them under Hayes and a big goal remains under Sonia Bompastor.
Although it remains the peace in that draw with the second stage that will be played on Stamford Bridge on Thursday, the blues need a dramatic comeback.
But before that time, their undefeated record in the League promotion is at stake this period in the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
Close but no cigar – Chelsea Run ends
Chelsea corresponded to the longest undefeated series in all competitions by a WSL team with their 31-game run between May last year and the quarter-final defeat on Wednesday.
The streak was the same as a record from Chelsea itself between April 2019 and September 2020, which gave a memory of their dominance during the Hayes era.
The last run of the blues started with an 8-1 thrashing from Bristol City in May 2024 and ended with them to lift the League Cup for the third time in their history last weekend.
The first trophy of the Bompastor era. pic.twitter.com/ReHKXSXFFH
– Chelsea FC Women (@chelseafcw) March 15, 2025
Chelsea won 29 games during this run, so that the 25 wins the blues were managed in their previous record streak. They gave 20 goals during this record-equalle streak, corresponding to the total that they admitted in their previous Recordrun, while they delivered 97 goals.
The only other club that comes close to this record, you will not be surprised to learn, is Man City, who enjoyed a 27-match unbeaten run (W23 D4) between April 2016 and April 2017.
Wednesday's loss on Wednesday also represented the first Chink in the armor of Chelsea under Bompastor, which had not tasted the defeat since he had arrived from Lyon last year.
What did we learn in midweek?
Both teams made changes for their second meeting in four days, with Khadija Shaw and Aoba Fujino injured while Miedema fell to the Stadsbank.
Even without those big names, the Cushing team brought the match to Chelsea. With Jess Park, Kerolin and Lily Murphy at Mary Fowler in Attack, the citizens created opportunities worth 0.94 XG on Wednesday and registered 15 shots with eight of those on goal.
Bompastor also opted for two changes, in which Keira Walsh and Aggie Beever-Jones came in for Johanna Rytting Kanyd and Sjoeke Nusken. Chelsea collected 1.08 xg of their 10 shots, where both teams hit the woodwork twice.
The changes to Bompastor had a limited impact. While Beever-Jones won eight times with Nathalie Bjorn as the most for Chelsea, she also lost 18 times. Only the Leila Ouahabi of the city (19) gave the ball away more occasions.
Chelsea was generally inefficient in attack, after he had registered 24 details in the city area to just 14 for their opponents on the other side.
City also had the luxury of taking Miedema as a 60th minute replacement, and she had the most shots on Target (three), touches in the opposition box (six) and joint-mast shots (three) among city players despite playing just 30 minutes.
Her total XG was 0.39, but her expected goals on Target (XGOT) figures show how impressive her finishes were, with the placement of her recordings that earned them an XGOT value of 1.25.
Miedema was not the only city ahead to impress, with Fowler who created a game-leading four chances, while her five crosses were only the second in the seven recorded by Sandy Baltimore of Chelsea.
While City Trail Chelsea with a huge margin of 12 points in the WSL, their midweek meeting offered a timely memory of the depth available for cushing in these crucial weeks of the season.
Example of the third matchup
In March alone, this will be the third of the four meetings between City and Chelsea, the first time that two clubs of top flights have met four times in a few months in the WSL era.
City was beaten 2-0 when they last met Chelsea in the competition, in November. They previously had an unbeaten line of three games against the blues in the WSL (W2 D1).
City was also unbeaten at the Etihad Stadium in the WSL (W3 D1) before she lost 4-2 to Buren Manchester United in January. This will be their first time that Chelsea has been hosted in the stadium.
Cushing is of course the only manager who has defeated the Blues of Bompastor this season this season, and he also has five WSL victories against Chelsea in his career – No manager has not more often defeated them in the competition, in which David Parker also does this five times.
In midweek hero Miedema also has a player with a talent for inflicting damage to the blues. The former Arsenal -star was directly involved in nine goals in 10 WSL appearances against Chelsea (five goals, four assists).
She could only become the fourth player involved in 10 or more goals against the blues in the competition, after Toni Duggan (13), Beth Mead (12) and Kim Little (11).
Chelsea may have lost their undefeated run over all competitions, but they still have to taste the defeat in 16 competitions under Bompastor. They are unbeaten in each of their last 19 WSL competitions (W17 D2) that return to the last few weeks of Hayes last year.
The last team that chose 20 consecutive games without defeat in the competition was Chelsea itself between February 2019 and January 2021, when they set the longest undefeated Run in WSL history at 33 games.
Chelsea is the only unbeaten team that this season stays in the top two levels of England (P16 W14 D2), and the last team that was the defeat in their opening of 17 games of a WSL campaign in 2018-19 (first 19).
In the meantime, Bompastor has the best profit percentage of every permanent manager in WSL history, with 88% of its 16 games that are in charge of the competition.
What is expected?
The OPTA Supercomputer makes the team of Bompastor small favorites, but City should certainly not be discounted.
Chelsea won 38.6% of our pre-match simulations, with City assigned a chance of 35.4% on victory and 26% of the prognoses that end the level of projection.
Chelsea get a chance of 98.8% to keep their title in our seasonal predictions, compared to the 1.1% hope of Arsenal and 0.1% of Man Utd, while the city ends in their current position of fourth in 56.8% of the scenarios.
The title race is perhaps anything but Sunday, but the game on Sunday represents one of the biggest obstacles that Chelsea has to navigate if they want to complete an unbeaten WSL campaign, while City hope to get a psychological blow before the second episode of their European draw.
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