The quarterfinals of the Subway Women’s League Cup took place on Wednesday evening, with eight teams in action across four games.
Arsenal are the current defending champions of the competition, having narrowly beat Chelsea 1-0 in extra time at Molineux last year. The Gunners have also won the competition more times than any other team, with seven titles, followed by Manchester City with four.
Five of the eight places in the quarter-finals were determined by the group stage, which took place in the first half of the season. The remaining three places were reserved for the teams competing in the group stage of the Champions League, meaning Chelsea, Arsenal and City entered the competition at this point.
This year’s final will take place on March 15 at Pride Park, home of Derby County Football Club. The stadium has a capacity of over 33,000 spectators and it is the first time that a final of this competition will be held there.
Here, 90min breaks down everything that happened in Wednesday night’s quarterfinal games and what’s next…
Durham were the lowest placed team in the competition after the group stage, so the Championship club faced a huge task when they were eliminated in the first knockout game by Chelsea. At Kingsmeadow they held their own in the first 20 minutes, but shortly afterwards Aggie Beever-Jones made the breakthrough.
Midfielder Oriane Jean-Francois added a second just after the hour with a superb strike to put the result beyond doubt, and then a flood of goals came for Chelsea. Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten and Maika Hamano scored the third, fourth and fifth goals in a five-minute span between the 73rd and 75th.
The second Manchester derby in a week took place at the Leigh Sports Village, but it wasn’t quite as goal-scoring as Sunday evening at the Etihad. This time Manchester City scored the first goal with twelve minutes left and Laura Coombs scored the goal.
Manchester United defender Millie Turner equalized just after the 30-minute mark, but City responded quickly to restore the lead. 18-year-old Lily Murphy scored City’s winner just before half-time as Gareth Taylor’s side took revenge for the weekend’s defeat to their bitter WSL rivals.
Arsenal traveled to face Brighton, who had a promising first half of the league season. It was a tricky affair at Broadfield Stadium as the games remained goalless for over an hour.
Within five minutes in the second half, Renee Slegers’ side scored three goals through Frida Maanum, Katie McCabe and Kyra Cooney-Cross to liven up the game. Mariona Caldentey then added a fourth goal in the final minutes to keep Arsenal’s hopes of winning the title alive.
The final game of the evening was between Tottenham and West Ham, who both qualified for the knockout stages as group winners. Spurs opened the scoring at Brisbane Road when Martha Thomas opened the scoring for the hosts after 10 minutes.
The visitors then fought back bravely before the half-time whistle as Seraina Piubel brought them back to level before Kirsty Smith fired them into the lead shortly afterwards. A goalless second half meant West Ham progressed to the semi-finals of the competition.
Winner of SF 1 vs. Winner of SF 2 – Saturday March 15th