Aston Villa Women bowed out of this season’s Vitality Women’s FA Cup on Saturday as they lost 3-1 to Chelsea at the Banks’s Stadium.
A Guro Reiten double and a Pernille Harder penalty put the Blues into the ascendency before Ramona Petzelberger got Villa on the board with the a stoppage-time penalty.
Our FA Cup campaign ends, as it did last season, at the Fourth Round stage.
Carla Ward introduced new signing Jill Scott from the start, with the 34-year-old joining Remi Allen and Ruesha Littlejohn in midfield.
And Villa made a positive start to the game with Sarah Mayling and Scott combining well on numerous occasions down the right-hand side.
Chloe Arthur also began the game looking like she had a point to prove as a rudimentary right-winger.
However, Chelsea would open the scoring in their first meaningful attack of the game.
Reiten was allowed to control the ball inside the area and shoot towards goal while on the swivel.
The well struck effort left Hannah Hampton rooted to the spot as it arrowed into the corner to give Chelsea the lead.
The Blues doubled their lead less than 10 minutes later.
Littlejohn was deemed to have felled Reiten inside the area, and Harder dispatched the resulting penalty kick with ease to put Emma Hayes’ side into the ascendency.
The pattern of play remained the same coming out of the half-time break, with Villa working hard all over the pitch to disrupt their opponents.
But despite all of that, the class of the visiting side continued to show as they sealed the victory just after the hour-mark.
Reiten, involved so heavily throughout, powered home a first-time strike beyond the helpless Hampton to put the tie to bed.
Villa, to their credit, competed deep into stoppage time and took a moral victory into next weekend when they pulled back a consolation goal.
Petzelberger dispatched a penalty with the last kick of the game to give the 1,000+ crowd something to cheer about, and another spirited display will give Carla Ward and co. encouragement heading into a meeting with the Hammers.
A Villa Women: Hampton, Patten, Asante (Corsie 69'), Pacheco, Mayling, Petzelberger, Scott, Allen (McLoughlin 88'), Littlejohn (Ewers 88'), Arthur (Hutton 69'), Hayles (Blindkilde-Browne 69')
Subs: Corsie, Haywood, Blindkilde-Browne, Boye-Hlorkah, Hutton, Rogers, McLoughlin, Ewers
Chelsea Women: Musovic, Bright, Andersson (Ingle 66'), Nouwen, Carter, Reiten, Fleming (Claypole 81'), Spence, Abdullina (Thompson 81'), Harder (Charles 45'), Kirby (James 72')
Subs: Ingle, Charles, Claypole, Thompson, James, Cuthbert, Berger
