Chelsea Women 2-2 West Ham Women
Chelsea Men 1-0 Tottenham Men
The chasing pack are now breathing down the necks of Chelsea Women, who could only manage a 2-2 draw against West Ham at Kingsmeadow last weekend.
With Arsenal and Manchester United winning, the gap at the top of the WSL table has shrunk to six points, giving both rival sides renewed hope of an unexpected upset with just four league matches remaining.
Chelsea Women play United and Spurs away, and Liverpool and Palace at home, with no match even close to being a gimme as the Blues also have the distraction of FA Cup and Champions League to contend with.
But the big one, the very big one, is Chelsea Women's second-leg Champions League clash against Barcelona at Stamford Bridge on Sunday 27 April at 2pm. The club is hoping to fill the ground with nearly 40,000 fans and it promises to be a humdinger. Tickets now available.
A raft of changes to Chelsea's line-up against the Irons at Kingsmeadow at the weekend left the home side imbalanced and flat, particularly in the second half, with West Ham equalising late on. "The second half was not good enough," said a clearly frustrated Sonia Bompastor at the end.
Drained of energy after the bizarre four-games-in-12-days series against Man City, including the astonishing 3-2 aggregate turnaround at the Bridge in the Champions League second leg, Chelsea must revive and regroup pronto.
Next up is the FA Cup semi-final clash with Liverpool at Kingsmeadow, at 12.15pm on Saturday 12 April. The match will be live on the BBC.
Eventful victory against Spurs
Meanwhile Chelsea's men had an eventful 1-0 win against Spurs at the Bridge on Thursday night, with a superb cross from Cole Palmer to meet captain Enzo Hernandez's head providing the only goal that stood.
There was plenty of hanging around for VAR, however, to decide that a second Chelsea 'goal', for Moises Caicedo – a stunning volley – wouldn't stand because of an offside, while a Tottenham leveller from Pape Matar Sarr in the 70th minute (which squirmed through keeper Robert Sanchez) was also ruled out for a foul in the build-up.
The fractured relationship between Spurs' fans and manager Ange Postecoglou was clear for all to see. Tottenham's supporters, massed at the Shed end, heckled their gaffer with chants of 'You don't know what you're doing' as he made two second-half substitutions, and when Sarr appeared to have equalised, Postecoglou responded by cupping his hand to his ear towards his own tribe, to answer back.
On the trudge to Fulham Broadway after the match, some witty Spurs fans began chanting: 'We nearly scored, we nearly scored, how poor must you be, we nearly scored!' At least that was the gist of the song; there was a lot of background noise, and I can't be 100% sure of the exact lyrics.
The Blues face the Bees on Sunday afternoon. Brentford's new stadium been a relatively happy hunting ground for Chelsea - far more so than when the Bees swarm to the Bridge.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
