The Subway Women’s League Cup quarter-finals took place on Wednesday evening with eight teams in action across four matches.
Arsenal are the current holders after narrowly beating Chelsea 1-0 in extra time at Molineux last year. The Gunners have also won the competition more than any other team with seven titles to their name, followed by Manchester City with four.
Five of the eight quarter-final places were determined by the group stage which took place in the first half of the season. The remaining three places were reserved for teams competing in the Champions League group stage, so Chelsea, Arsenal and City entered the competition at this stage.
This year’s final will take place on March 15 at Pride Park, home of Derby County Football Club. The stadium has a capacity of more than 33,000 and this will be the first time that a final of this competition will take place there.
Here, 90 Minutes breaks down everything that happened in Wednesday night’s quarter-finals and what’s next…
Durham were the lowest-ranked team in the competition after the group stage, so the Championship club faced a significant task in traveling to Chelsea in the first knockout match. They held on for the first 20 minutes at Kingsmeadow, but Aggie Beever-Jones broke the deadlock soon after.
Midfielder Oriane Jean-François added a second with a sublime strike just after the hour to put the result beyond doubt and a flurry of goals ensued for Chelsea. Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten and Maika Hamano scored the third, fourth and fifth in a span of five minutes between the 73rd and 75th.
The second Manchester derby in the space of a week took place at the Leigh Sports Village, but it wasn’t quite the goal-fest seen at the Etihad on Sunday evening. Manchester City opened the scoring on this occasion 12 minutes from time and it was Laura Coombs who scored.
Manchester United defender Millie Turner leveled the score just after 30 minutes, but City acted quickly to restore their lead. Lily Murphy, 18, scored the winner for City near half-time as Gareth Taylor’s side avenged the weekend’s defeat against their bitter WSL rivals.
Arsenal traveled to face Brighton, who have enjoyed a promising first half of the league season. It was a tricky affair at Broadfield Stadium as the matches remained goalless for over an hour.
In the space of five minutes in the second half, Renee Slegers’ side scored three goals through Frida Maanum, Katie McCabe and Kyra Cooney-Cross to bring the game to life. Mariona Caldentey then added the fourth in the dying minutes as Arsenal kept their hopes of retaining the trophy alive.
The final match of the evening was between Tottenham and West Ham, both of whom qualified for the round of 16 by finishing top of their respective groups. Spurs dealt the first blow at Brisbane Road as Martha Thomas opened the scoring for the hosts in the 10th minute.
The visitors then fought back valiantly before the half-time whistle as Seraina Piubel put them back on level terms before Kirsty Smith fired them back soon after. A scoreless second half meant it was West Ham who progressed to the semi-finals of the competition.
Winner of SF 1 vs Winner of SF 2 – Saturday March 15
