OOH Lincoln Ladies are counting themselves very unlucky after being knocked out of the FA Women’s Cup on Sunday.
Chelsea (3) .v (1) OOH Lincoln
Although the final score was 3-1 to hosts Chelsea, it could have been so different had Lincoln taken their chances in the first half, and if they had been awarded a blatant penalty just before half time.
It was the visitors though who drew first blood.
After a near miss from Jodie Michalska with just two minutes on the clock, she made amends in the fourth minute.
The Lincoln striker put in a tough challenge 40 yards out, then managed to knock it past a defender into the path of Chelsea keeper Siobhan Chamberlain, who went to catch the ball but fumbled. Michalska duly sidefooted the ball into the empty net to give the visitors an early lead.
Chelsea’s first real oppurtunity came with 40 minutes gone when Asante shot just over the bar.
Just a minute later Leandra Little put in a pin-point accurate free kick to Amanda Barr, who found herself alone at the far post with only Chamberlain to beat, but the Chelsea keeper brought down Barr in the area, only for the ref to wave play on.
And to make matters worse for Lincoln, a minute before the half time whistle was blown, Leanne Sanderson found a way through the Lincoln back four and fired hard towards goal – her shot forced a spectacular save from Lincoln keeper Kay Hawke, but the ball rebounded to Eniola Aluko, who duly slotted the ball easily, to give the home side a pricless equaliser at the half time whistle.
With just three minutes of the second half played, a good switch ball over the top of the Lady Imps defence found Susi at the far post, who managed to squeeze the ball over the line from a tight angle to give Chelsea the lead.
Inexplicably, instead of celebrating her goal, Susi decided to punch Lincoln left back Kerry in the face, resulting in a red card and an early bath for the Chelsea left wing.
With 58 minutes of the match played Aluko notched up the winner for the home side – she ran through two Lincoln defenders, her hard shot just beating the flailing glove of Kay Hawke to make the final score 3-1 to Chelsea, and see them progress to the semi-final of the FA Cup.
Lincoln had their chances to come back against the 10 players of Chelsea.
With 15 minutes of the match remaining Michalska fed a slide-rule ball through to Carla Ward putting her one-on-one with Chamberlain. Had Ward not skied the ball high over the bar it might have been a completely different run-in to the end of the match. However as the minutes ran out for the visitors, the two goal difference became more and more insurmountable.
The best save of the match, though, came from Hawke in injury time. Chelsea were awarded a free kick on the edge fo the area just in front of the penalty spot. Sanderson fired the ball through the wall, but the Lincoln keeper’s spectacular diving save managed to keep the score down to 3-1.
‘I’m really proud of the way teh girls played,’ said Lady Imps manager Rod Wilson.
‘Our first half defensive performance is the best I’ve ever seen from the girls, and I believe we were the better team of the first half. We went to sleep for the first ten minutes of the second half, which cost us dear. But had we taken a couple more chances, and if we had been awarded our penalty, which would have seen us go into half time 2-0 up, that would have put a completely different complexion on the match. This goes to show that we can compete on equal terms with one of the best teams in the National Division, which shows how far we have come as a squad.’
