The quarter-finals of the Subway Women’s League Cup took place on Wednesday night with eight teams in action across four games.
Arsenal are the current holders of the competition who narrowly won 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, next Manchester City on four.
Five of the eight places in the quarterfinals were determined by the group stage that took place in the first half of the season. The remaining three places were reserved for teams competing in the group stage of the competition Champions Leagueso Chelsea, Arsenal and City entered the competition at this point.
This year’s final will take place on March 15 at Pride Park, the home of Derby County Football Club. The stadium has a capacity of over 33,000 spectators and this will be the first time that the final of this competition will be played there.
Here, 90 Minutes breaks down everything that happened in Wednesday night’s quarter-final matches and what’s to come…
Durham were the lowest-ranked team remaining in the competition after the group stage, so the Championship club faced a significant task by traveling to Chelsea in the first leg of the knockout stages. They held on for the first 20 minutes at Kingsmeadow, but Aggie Beever-Jones soon put the game away.
Oriana midfielder Jean-Francois added a second with a sublime strike just after the hour mark to put the result beyond doubt, and then a flurry of goals followed for Chelsea. Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten and Maika Hamano scored third, fourth and fifth in the space of five minutes between 73rd and 75th.
The second Manchester derby in the space of a week took place at Leigh Sports Village, but it was not the goal fest we witnessed at the Etihad on Sunday night. Manchester City opened the scoring on this occasion in the 12th minute, and Laura Coombs scored the goal.
Manchester United defender Millie Turner equalized just after 30 minutes, but City responded quickly to regain the lead. 18-year-old Lily Murphy scored the winner for City on the brink of half-time as Gareth Taylor’s side avenged last weekend’s defeat against their bitter rivals in WSL.
Arsenal travel to face Brighton, who have enjoyed a promising first half of the season in the league. It was a topsy-turvy affair at Broadfield Stadium as the games 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 back to life. Mariona Caldentey then added a fourth in the closing minutes as Arsenal kept their hopes of retaining the trophy alive.
The final game of the night was between Tottenham and West Ham, both of whom qualified for the knockout rounds by finishing top of their groups. Spurs struck the first blow at Brisbane Road when Martha Thomas opened the scoring for the hosts in the 10th minute.
The visitors then hit back bravely before the half-time whistle when Seraina Piubel pulled them back level before Kirsty Smith fired them into the lead soon after. A goalless 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
READ THE LATEST WOMEN’S SOCCER NEWS, FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
