Chloe Kelly experienced football in all of its cruel and brilliant majesty for Arsenal against Manchester City. She could so easily have been the winner but ends up the loser.
Winner: Aston Villa
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Aston Villa boss Natalia Arroyo will be hoping their first win of the campaign will usher in a similarly dramatic change in fortunes as occurred last season. In a truly bizarre run having taken over the club in January, Arroyo oversaw six defeats on the bounce followed by five victories.
She will have been eyeing up pointless West Ham as a banker having drawn two and lost one of their opening three games, and victory duly arrived courtesy of two stunning goals, quite weirdly ending up in precisely the same spot: close to, but not quite in the postage stamp in the top left corner of Kinga Szemik’s goal.
The Hammers goalkeeper had no chance with either. Kirsty Hanson’s came from a short corner, as she played a one-two with Lynn Wilms before driving it in from the right corner of the box. And provider became goalscorer just a few minutes later as Wilms curled/smashed a free-kick in from the edge of the box to knock the stuffing out of West Ham.
Loser: Chloe Kelly
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It’s been a rotten run for Arsenal. They were **[the loser last week](https://www.football365.com/news/wsl-winner-loser-arsenal-out-of-title-race)** as we questioned whether after consecutive draws they may already be out of the WSL title race. And this weekend, while Chelsea offered a chink of light by dropping their first points of the season in a draw with Manchester United, the Gunners contrived to fall further behind the Blues through their first defeat of the campaign.
It was another bad day in general, but for Chloe Kelly specifically.
The Lionesses hero was left out of the starting lineup by Renee Slegers, perhaps with a less than welcoming return to Manchester City in mind. Kelly left City for Arsenal in the summer after a chaotic transfer saga which ended with the 27-year-old accusing her former club of attempting to “assassinate her character”.
Kelly responded to jeers from the City fans as she came off the bench with a quite brilliant curled effort into the far corner to draw Arsenal level at 2-2 in the 83rd minute. “It had to be her!” was the call on commentary as Kelly shouted and pointed to the Arsenal badge on her chest in celebration.
“Chloe is passionate, she has fire and that’s what makes her really, really strong, and that’s what she brings to us,” Slegers said, claiming she “didn’t see the celebration”.
But the Manchester City fans certainly did, and delighted in chanting “Chloe, what’s the score?” as she and her Arsenal teammates left the pitch following Iman Beney’s late winner. Football is cruel and brilliant.