Manchester City Women: The race for the WSL title

In the Women’s Super League, Manchester City currently sit in second place on 48 points, 2 points behind Chelsea. Arsenal are the team in third 10 points behind City (one game in hand). Goal difference wise, Chelsea have a better goal difference by 5 and therefore City could do with winning on points.

Photo by Chloe Knott - Danehouse/Getty Images

The next WSL game for City happens to be against Chelsea at home on April 21^st. Of course, winning this game would put City top of the table by one point.

If the game ended with a win for Chelsea, it would be near impossible for City to catch Chelsea. We would need to win the last two remaining games, with Chelsea losing both.

If the game ended in a draw, City would need Chelsea to drop points in one of their remaining matches.

Looking at the fixtures, this seems unlikely but not impossible. Chelsea’s last games are against Tottenham (8^th place) and Reading (7^th place). City’s final two games are against Birmingham (9^th) and West Ham (10^th).

Photo by Chloe Knott - Danehouse/Getty Images

Therefore, while both teams face seemingly ‘easy’ matches after the top of the table clash, probability would say Chelsea are more likely to drop points, but only just.

However, the Champions League also plays a part. The silver lining of being knocked out to Barcelona, is City can now focus on the WSL more. In amongst their fixtures, Chelsea face Bayern Munich twice.

This may give City a small upper-hand fitness wise as Chelsea have the added tiredness and travel.

Head to head, in the opposite fixture, City were on the wrong side of a 3-1. It’s safe to say, however, it will be close and our fixture against Chelsea, if it is not a draw, is likely to be the deciding match…

Photo by Matt McNulty - Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images