It does seem a poor show that apparently no one from the FA was at Kingsmeadow to oversee things when there’s such a consensus that the match shouldn’t have taken place. And Hayes does have a point in that there should be undersoil heating at this level. The trouble is, most WSL matches still take place at cash-strapped lower-league clubs’ grounds – nonetheless, the money in the game is there.
So now Chelsea and Liverpool must find a new date in a crowded calendar and Arsenal and Manchester United have a chance to close the gap on Hayes’s side when they play later today, assuming they do. Tottenham v Leicester is already off – will more games follow?
So that’s us done for today. You can now nip over and join Alex Hess for Leeds men v Brentford men. Thanks for dropping by anyway. It’s been brief. Bye.
Updated
Matt Beard is up now: “I don’t know why you had to play six or seven minutes to see it was frozen. It was frozen this morning, frozen in the warmup. I’m just gutted for our fans who got up at 5 o’clock this morning to be here. We said we were unhappy to play on it and the ref said it was alright.
“Whoever made the decision for the game to be on, it’s put players at risk today. We’ve seen Niamh Charles, Megan Campbell, Melissa Lawley slip over. It should have been called off at 9.30, they’d spoken about moving t back to 2 o’clock but stuck with 12.30.
“We started the game well too didn’t we so that’s a disappointment,” the Liverpool manager adds with a wry smile.
Emma Hayes speaks: “Where to begin?” says the Chelsea manager. “You could see from the opening minutes it was like an ice rink down the side. I’m upset it even got to this stage, but it’s for the FA and officials to determine whether it’s on. We’ve got to take our game seriously, we can have blowers on the pitch but it’s not enough. Everybody wants to get the game on and when you’ve got emotions – say, one team wants to play, one team doesn’t want to play – you need someone else to take the decision. There’s no FA here.
“Investment has gone in to surfaces, the next stop is undersoil heating everywhere, we don’t live in Barbados.”
“It’s embarrassing,” says Hope Powell on BBC punditry duty, “it’s not a good look.” Consensus is they should have called the game off this morning.
Emma Hayes, fair play to her, has come out to address the fans about why the game’s been abandoned. A desperate disappointment for the crowd, and it’s no picnic to travel for a 12.30 Sunday kick-off
You have to put safety first in these conditions, and better to call a halt now than exert, and risk, the players’ welfare on a freezing day. And it is extremely cold in London today, more so than yesterday even, and anyone who went to a Saturday game will attest to how nippy it was.
Match abandoned due to frozen pitch
Lengthy conflabs continue between the officials and managers, the players make towards the tunnel, a few boos ring out. And they confirm the match can’t continue.
Referee Paul Howard is concerned about the surface, and has called both managers over to discuss safety worries.
Updated
6 mins: Van der Sanden has another good chance blocked after good work by Nagano. Liverpool have started really well.
5mins: Van der Sanden does well to beat Carter down the right, feeds Holland who then gives Lawley an opening. There’s an almighty scramble and Stengel perhaps would have scored with a sharper first touch. Chelsea clear. Promising from Liverpool
3 mins: Stengel is in the thick of Liverpool’s first attempted attack, pressing and harrying but Chelsea break and Reiten skips past Campbell in the Reds’ area and is almost fouled but the keeper Laws clears.
2 mins: Chelsea appear to be set up in a 3-4-3, Liverpool 4-4-1-1. Chelsea have the game’s first foray down the left but Kerr’s cross drifts out for a goal kick.
Peep! After a rousing minute’s applause for Gianluca Vialli and a taking of the knee, Chelsea get us under way.
Updated
The players emerge from the tunnel – there’s a good crowd in again.
Chelsea’s players are all warming up in “Vialli 9” shirts – a nice touch.
Going back to those teams, Lauren James has dropped to the bench. Emma Hayes explains that both James and Fran Kirby need to have their fitness managed carefully, while Liverpool are lifted by Stengel’s return up front.
It looks properly cold at Kingsmeadow and the surface will be hard; it’s also more than a touch misty, though not on the scale of yesterday’s near-farcical men’s match between Oxford and Ipswich.
You can get on top of the latest moves in the women’s game with our natty transfer interactive:
Team news
Your Blues this lunchtime! 💪#CFCW pic.twitter.com/u3UnfWoEG5
— Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) January 22, 2023
A debut for Fuka Nagano 🙌
— Liverpool FC Women (@LiverpoolFCW) January 22, 2023
Here's how we line up to face Chelsea this afternoon in the @BarclaysWSL 📋🔴 pic.twitter.com/LyfOZjsxlq
Preamble
Morning everyone. Welcome to what on the face of it looks like a routine home win for Chelsea. Emma Hayes’s side played like the champions they are at Arsenal last week, absorbing pressure and showing their clinical steak in snaffling up a late chance, through Sam Kerr, to grab a draw that kept their rivals at bay. Liverpool, on the other hand, suffered a chastening 6-0 shellacking at Manchester United.
But Liverpool stunned Chelsea 2-1 on the opening weekend of the season – still the Blues’ only defeat of the campaign – and have been busy in the transfer market again this week, signing the midfielder Miri Taylor from Angel FC of the NWSL. The influential forward Katie Stengel could also be back and their manager, Matt Beard, has been trilling about the Reds’ “positive week in training”. A reaction is due, and this should be worth watching, certainly more so than the dreary draw between these clubs’ men’s teams yesterday.
Later today, in-form second-placed Manchester United visit Reading – Suzanne Wrack has written about how Marc Skinner’s side have closed the gap with the established big three here – and Arsenal travel to Brighton this evening. While yesterday, Aston Villa impressed again when they held Manchester City to a 1-1 draw, a further sign that challengers to the elite are closing the gap a tad.
There was a pitch inspection at 9.30am in the light of the brutal overnight frost, but the surface passed muster and it’s game on.
Kick-off at Kingsmeadow: 12.30pm GMT.
