Spurs Women impress despite narrow loss in WSL opener at Chelsea

Spurs Women performed admirably during our Barclays FA Women's Super League debut but lost out in a narrow 1-0 defeat against Chelsea in front of almost 25,000 fans at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

We were undone by a moment of quality from Bethany England who scored the only goal of the game for Chelsea in the first half.

Goalkeeper Becky Spencer returned from injury to make the starting line-up, while new signing Rachel Furness made her debut for Spurs after joining on a season-long loan from Reading on Thursday.

Chelsea, twice double-winners, twice Champions League semi-finalists showed their strength in the opening period and took an early lead through England – the forward rifled the ball into the top corner from 25 yards after four minutes.

But we had chances to equalise through Kit Graham, Coral-Jade Haines and Furness.

Finishing the first half strongly, Graham could have levelled the score line with a low effort that was saved well by the Chelsea keeper Ann-Katrin Berger.

Three minutes before the break, Graham found Haines on the edge of the box, but her curling effort went narrowly wide of the post.

Spencer made some top-class saves throughout the match, one of which came moments before half-time as she tipped over a fine effort from Guro Reiten.

After the interval, Furness came close to scoring a debut goal – her strike towards the bottom corner was saved well by Berger.

Spencer went on to deny attempts at goal from Drew Spence, Reiten on two more occasions, and England in the final period to keep the scoreline at 1-0.

Match data

Goal: Chelsea – England 4.

Referee: Amy Fearn.

Venue: Stamford Bridge.

Attendance: 24,564.