Chelsea punish West Ham for misses to return to the WSL summit

Hayashi put the ball in the back of the net in the 14th minute, after a free‑kick was headed into her path, but the flag was inexplicably up for offside despite Lawrence playing her on.

“It’s not good enough, the bottom line is if that’s how I operated in my job, I wouldn’t be in my job,” said an outraged Skinner. “It’s a frequent occurrence … Apologies post the game don’t change the outcome.”

Calling for VAR the manager said: “A lot of people are talking about VAR … If that’s what we need to do to get results right then that’s what we need to do.

“Ultimately the referees still aren’t professional in this game so they’re not actually in a situation where they are solely focusing on these games and I think that has just got to change.”

There was a further blow for the home team not long after, with the influential midfielder ­Katrina Gorry going off injured and Marika ­Bergman ­Lundin coming on to replace her, but still West Ham would threaten, Ueki clipping the ball off the ­crossbar after a run from the halfway line and Asseyi putting the ball over after Hayashi had found her.

The task was a big one, with the visiting team unbeaten in their past 11 WSL games against West Ham, going back to 2018, with 10 wins and one draw against their London rivals, but West Ham were not a pushover at the Chigwell Construction stadium.

Sensing the threat the Hammers’ posed, Hayes sent on Cuthbert and Catarina Macário, followed by ­Ramírez and Fran Kirby less than 10 minutes later, just past the hour mark.

Chelsea got the goal to give them more of a cushion with two minutes of normal time remaining, Macário’s corner taken down by Cuthbert who lashed it into the roof of the net.

Chelsea continue to march on in all four competitions, above ­Manchester City on goal difference. “We don’t underestimate anybody. Two great goals from us but the standard wasn’t there today,” Beever-Jones said.

“It’s the Chelsea standard for us, we want to win every game and win with good performances and we weren’t up to scratch today. We weren’t up to standard but we have games every three days so we have to be happy with it and we got the job done.”