The Gunners denied rivals Chelsea an early semi-final spot today winning 3-0 at home ARSENAL Ladies caretaker manager John Bayer believes his side are moving in the right direction after a 3-0 victory over local rivals Chelsea Ladies in the FA WSL Continental Cup. Kelly Smith with a brace and Shinobu Ohno grabbed the goals but it was the return of creative midfielder Jordan Nobbs from injury that really had Bayer purring after her cameo appearance. "Jordan is a delightful character and we've really looked after her coming back and she's going to be a real asset and help strengthen the side but we are going to go carefully with her," said Bayer. We've given her 20 minutes game time and she'll get more time over the next two games and we are really pleased. "I think the performance was another step forward for us. My first game was Liverpool away and we had about a week of training with them to get certain principles in that we wanted to have, and I think it was a convincing win today. "We started each half very quickly and that was one of the thing we spoke about before the match and at half-time. Emphasizing that we don't need to give anything away in the first ten minutes, and we worked ever so hard for our 1-0 lead in the first half." The home side came close to taking the lead early on through Smith who hit a fantastic volley from the edge of the box that was well saved by keeper Marie Hourihan. Ji So Yun came closest for Chelsea with a well hit, 25-yard effort that was tipped onto the bar by Arsenal 'keeper Siobhan Chamberlain. Two minutes before the break Arsenal were awarded a penalty after Rachel Williams handled from a corner despite there looking to be little threat. Smith stepped up to take and sent the keeper the wrong way as she guided the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal. Arsenal started the second-half as brightly as they did the first with Danielle Carter testing Hourihan, who produced another great save. Arsenal capitalised on their dominance with 15 minutes remaining with Ohno hitting a volley from inside the box into the top left corner of the goal. Smith doubled her tally directly from a corner with eight minutes left. Her in-swinging effort went straight over the keeper into the back of the net. "I think for 44 minutes we were comfortable and we gave away a silly penalty and went into the break 1-0 down and that gave them the advantage so we had to come out a little more," said Chelsea manager Emma Hayes. "But the reality is that three mistakes has given away three goals so coming up against a team of this quality you are always going to be chasing the game. "Today we have been beaten by the better team and the Arsenal players managed the occasion better but fundamentally if you make mistakes it costs you goals. "I think we need to put ourselves in the best position possible to qualify so we need to learn quite quickly and eliminate the mistakes we are making at the moment." Arsenal (4-4-2): Byrne; Scott, Kinga, Stoney, Fahey; Yankey (Nobbs 73), Carter, Williamson, Bailey; Smith, Ohno (Knaak 86) Subs not used: Mitchell, Chamberlain, Murray, Ayisi, Sampson Bookings: None Red Cards: None Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Hourihan; Blundell, Flaherty, Bassett, Rafferty (Buet 72); Spence, Chapman; Yun (Borges 65), Ogimi, Aluko; Williams (Groenen 79) Subs not used: Endler, Wilhelmsson, Groenen, Coombs, Meiwald Bookings: Williams Red Cards: None Attendance: 615 Referee: D. Cook To find out more about the FA visit: http://thefa.com Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FA The FA Cup on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheFACup England on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EnglandTeam FAWSL on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FAWSL

• published: 07 Jul 2014
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