Chelsea Women face Manchester City test after WSL title defence starts with defeat at Liverpool

With Chelsea men’s team away on international duty and the home match last weekend against Liverpool postponed, head coach Graham Potter won’t be able to use the excuse he has not had time to assess his new squad.

The Blues return to Premier League action at Crystal Palace on October 1, and the ex-Brighton boss will be keen to land his first win since taking over.

The lack of a match this weekend places women’s head coach Emma Hayes firmly as centre of attention as her charges failed miserably to beat newly-promoted Liverpool at Prenton Park on Sunday in their opening WSL fixture. The champions went down 2-1 after taking an early lead through Fran Kirby’s penalty.

While a defeat is not fatal – they lost 3-2 to Arsenal in the opening league fixture last season before recovering to win their third title on the spin – this loss is significant as it was not against a title challenger.

They are at home to Manchester City on Sunday. City also lost last weekend, 4-3 to Aston Villa, and will be equally smarting from that result and keen to put one over an already wounded Chelsea.

City lost key players in the summer and are on a rebuilding exercise. Chelsea recruited top, proven footballers that should have hit the ground running.

Hayes said: “We’re disappointed but I know how much this team over the years has the ability to recover quickly, and I’m sure we’ll do that this weekend.”

Kirby said: “We both had difficult results on Sunday, so we both need to bounce back and get a win. It’s always difficult when we play Man City, they’re a quality side. We just have to do what we can in training this week to put it right.

“I’m absolutely happy to have scored [against Liverpool], but the end goal is to get the win at the final whistle. It doesn’t really matter who scores it or who puts it in the back of the net, we need to do better in certain situations.

“We were a little bit too slow on the ball and we didn’t really create much. We need to be a bit more creative in and around the box.”