England legend Rachel Brown-Finnis believes the current Women's Super League season has the potential to be the best ever with Manchester United 's recent growth playing a big part.
Brown-Finnis, who kept goal for both Liverpool and Everton during her playing career and is now a television pundit with the BBC and BT Sport, believes the standard of the WSL has risen this season and that both Manchester clubs could challenge the London duopoly of Chelsea and Arsenal.
Emma Hayes' Blues have looked invincible in recent years winning the last three league titles, although they were pushed to the final day by Arsenal last season. United were only promoted to the top flight back in 2019 but this season are challenging the traditional frontrunners.
Marc Skinner's side have only lost once so far, against Chelsea at home, and won 3-2 at the Emirates back in November before drawing 1-1 in a local derby with Man City in front of a crowd of 44,259 - a record attendance for the hosts. And Brown-Finnis, who represented England at two FIFA World Cups, believes their progress has helped the league become competitive than ever before at the top.
"To have both Manchester clubs at the top has really helped," Brown-Finnis said. "It has been really nice seeing Manchester United rise up and look like really strong contenders, certainly for a Champions League place, and maybe even for the title.
"To have an established derby between them and City with those two clubs both now two of the best in the country is huge and has helped the league.
"I think this could well be the first time in three seasons that Chelsea don't win the league. There are certainly other teams who are better equipped than ever to take points off Chelsea.
"That has been proven already in the first half of the season, every team at the top who is challenging has already had one loss. So it is going to be, for me, the most highly contested WSL season ever."
Arsenal and United are three and five points respectively behind table-toppers Chelsea but both have a game in hand. United nearly went into the Christmas break with a prized derby victory, but Laura Coombs' header from Chloe Kelly's cross ensured both had to settle for a point.
However, with Arsenal facing Chelsea in the first game of the New Year, both Manchester clubs will have a chance to make ground on their title rivals. And Brown-Finnis who was at the derby at the Etihad last week said it was the perfect advert for the WSL.
"That was a really great game, it had an extra edge with both the red and the blue right at the top of the league," she added. "45,000 fans made it an absolutely brilliant atmosphere and it was a good quality game to boot.
"We also had a good sprinkling of Lionesses in the game which helped, who some of the fans could meet. That is what the league should be about.
"Having seen Man United from their inception only four years ago and chatted to a load of fans, they didn't even have a fanbase, now they have loads at Leigh Sports Village. I see how passionate those fans are now, they follow this team around the country and are very, very proud of their team.
"They aren't necessarily all fans from the original Man United men's team, they have new fans as well."
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