Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr each scored twice as Chelsea produced a first-half blitz en route to thrashing Servette 7-0 in Geneva in their third Women’s Champions League group match.
Following the 1-0 Women’s Super League win at Aston Villa on Saturday, boss Emma Hayes had said in the build-up to this contest that she wanted Chelsea to be “more relentless after the first goal”.
She subsequently saw her team, last season’s Champions League runners-up, deliver in emphatic fashion, with Melanie Leupolz’s eighth-minute strike to open the scoring being added to five times in the first half.
Three of those came in a flurry between the 16th and 20th minutes, starting with Kirby, who had hit the bar at 0-0, firing past Ines Pereira having been teed up by Kerr.
Two minutes later Kerr got on the scoresheet herself with a close-range finish from Leupolz’s cut-back, and the Australian then swiftly netted again for 4-0, prodding in following a lofted ball from Kirby.
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There was only brief respite for Servette – Champions League debutants last season and beaten 3-0 by Juventus and 5-0 by Wolfsburg in their opening two games of this campaign – before the visitors scored another, with Kirby dinking in number five in the 26th minute.
Jessie Fleming then struck past Pereira from a tight angle to make it 6-0 with seven minutes of normal time to go before the break.
Five minutes into the second half the advantage was extended further as Kerr sent the ball across the box, Kirby left it and Guro Reiten side-footed in.
While further goals looked more than likely at that point, the closest Chelsea got to an eighth was Drew Spence rattling the bar with a shot in the 64th minute, shortly before Hayes brought on Maren Mjelde for her long-awaited return to action after injury.
Chelsea now have seven points from three Group A games, having previously drawn 3-3 with Wolfsburg and then won 2-1 at Juventus. Their next match in the pool is against Servette at Kingsmeadow a week on Thursday.
What’s next?
Chelsea now go to Manchester City in the WSL on Saturday November 14 at 3pm, before hosting Servette on Thursday evening at 8pm in the Champions League.