Manchester United Women manager Marc Skinner identifies crucial gap to WSL champions Chelsea

Marc Skinner said Man United capitalised on a “terrified” Chelsea in the first half before the champions came from behind to win 4-2 and seal a third consecutive league title.

Goals from Martha Thomas and Ella Toone either side of Erin Cuthbert’s effort put the Red Devils 2-1 up at the break as Chelsea looked to retain their Barclays FA Women’s Super League crown.

But the Blues came out firing in the second half, with Sam Kerr scoring two sensational volleys and winger Guro Reiten finishing off a fast counter-attack to turn the game on its head.

And after his side missed out on Champions League qualification, Skinner admitted that Chelsea’s strength in depth ultimately told as United failed to convert their first-half dominance.

The Man United boss said: “Do you what it probably was – they looked terrified first half, and second half because we’re winning, what you got to lose? The mindset changes.

“When we hit them as hard as we did in the first half, it’s going to rock you but they have that experience to fall back on and they have the changes and depth in the squad to do that, we need to invest in that area, we’re going to invest in that area.

“We knew they’d changed shape because it didn’t work for them in the first half, they’d changed shape, adapted from their previous games and it played into our hands really.

“They progressed more, threw caution to the wind because they could, and honestly the goals we conceded are not good from our standard.”

United were much the better of the sides in the opening exchanges and were rewarded when Thomas got onto the end of Katie Zelem’s perfect ball from a free-kick after 13 minutes.

Cuthbert emphatically levelled the scores with a powerful strike into the bottom corner five