Birmingham City 0-1 Chelsea: Fran Kirby header maintains champions’ unbeaten start
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Birmingham City Women 0-1 Chelsea Women - WSL highlights
Fran Kirby's early header gave Chelsea a narrow victory at a Birmingham side still seeking their first Women's Super League point of the season.
Kirby headed in Erin Cuthbert's free-kick after eight minutes to extend the champions' unbeaten league start.
Guro Reiten hit the bar for Chelsea, while Beth England had a goal controversially ruled out for offside.
But City almost salvaged a point late on as Claudia Walker headed Harriet Scott's cross just wide.
'Save of the season...not by a goalkeeper!'
As expected, Chelsea - undefeated in 24 consecutive top-flight games - dominated possession and chances at Solihull's Damson Park but were almost made to pay for failing to threaten Birmingham keeper Hannah Hampton often enough.
They fired in 20 shots but only five were on target, although England was unfortunate to see a header wrongly ruled out for offside against Sam Kerr, who appeared not to be interfering with play.
England was also denied by Hampton in the closing stages and fired another chance narrowly wide but Chelsea triumphed despite not hitting the heights of their 9-0 win over Bristol City in their previous game.
Birmingham have lost all of their three games but new boss Carla Ward will have been encouraged by her side's resilience and they were much improved from the side that lost this fixture 6-0 last season.