Chelsea's eight-goal demolition of Albanian champions Vllaznia at Kingsmeadow, under the floodlights on Wednesday night, was the silver lining to a no doubt challenging week for recuperating Blues manager Emma Hayes.
Hayes recently underwent an emergency hysterectomy, following an ongoing battle with endometriosis. She released a statement on Thursday 13 October, sharing the news.
Sam Kerr produced one of her trademark somersaults after netting her fourth goal of the night, while Pernille Harder scored a hat-trick and sub Katerina Svitkova added a peach of a header to complete the 8-0 scoreline.
It was sweet, accurate, relentless one-touch football that left Vllazia, playing with a line of five defenders, all at sea and unable to even conjure up one chance on Chelsea's goal. Keeper Zecira Musovic, given a chance between the sticks with Ann-Katrin Berger being rested, had just a couple of touches of the ball all evening. It was that one-sided.
Chelsea host Aston Villa at the weekend, and if they take their current form into that match, another victory looks likely.
Yet for all Kerr's success and Harder's beautiful forward play, Chelsea's star of the night was Guro Reiten, the creative force down the left wing, who provided cross after cross of outstanding quality, and could pretty much claim six assists.
She is the stealth bomber of the Blues' side - sneaking up on opponents, darting into tight spaces and always keeping total control of the ball. This Women's Champions League group game was a Reiten masterclass.
Uefa's visiting officials looked alarmed by the huge Albanian contingent of fans, letting off flares towards the end of the game. Mercifully the wind blew the clouds of smoke over Norbiton, rather than the Kingsmeadow pitch.
The Croatian ref, Sabina Bolic, briefly stopped the game when a couple of flares landed in the Chelsea goal area, but Musovic – having nothing better to do – had wandered up to the halfway line anyway, and was nowhere near the pyrotechnics.
Even so, a stewarding inquiry will be held by Chelsea to ensure staff are better prepared for any future 'flare-ups'.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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