Ashley Lawrence crashes in the second goal for Chelsea at Celtic ParkSNS

Ashley Lawrence crashes in the second goal for Chelsea at Celtic Park

Amy Canavan
BBC Sport Scotland at Celtic Park

Below-par Chelsea came from behind to narrowly overcome hearty Celtic and remain top of Group B in the Women's Champions League.

Sonia Bompastor made a host of changes for the trip to Glasgow and her side were made to work hard to maintain her 100% record as Blues boss.

For the first time, Celtic Park hosted a game in the women's competition and history soon hit once more. Against the run of play, and many expectations, the Scottish champions took the lead.

Murphy Agnew burst free from the Chelsea backline and latched onto a sublime, bending pass from Amy Gallacher to slot in Celtic's first group stage goal.

It acted as quite the wake up call for the Super League winners and a mere six minutes later they were level as Maika Hamano wrong-footed home goalkeeper Kelsey Daugherty.

Within a further four minutes, the visitors were ahead. Perseverance paid off on a clinical counter-attack and Ashley Lawrence lashed into the roof of the net to turn the first of back-to-back battle of Britain matches on its head.

Onlookers would be forgiven for thinking Elena Sadiku's side would go on to suffer something of a hiding, but Celtic battled hard throughout a fluctuating second half.

Lucy Ashworth-Clifford provided a threat down the left and whipped in a string of dangerous deliveries, while Daugherty produced impressive saves to keep the scoreline tight.

Tight it was, but turn it Celtic could not as a stoppage-time red card for Agnes Beever-Jones came too late for them to exploit and they fell to a third consecutive defeat in their maiden group stage venture.

Scottish champions show courage and growth

Celtic Park was the stage in May when Celtic clinched their first SWPL title, and there was another milestone to celebrate as they took a shock lead on 22 minutes.

Gallacher produced an outstanding assist for Agnew to send an already loud home support wild.

It was the kind of move seen often from Sadiku's side in the SWPL, but not in their opening defeats to Twente and Real Madrid in this competition.

The head coach said she had seen signs of growth and there was more evidence of that here.

Emma Lawton, who was playing part-time football as recently as early September, impressed again and contained half-time substitute Guro Reiten with relative ease, while Shannon McGregor was a force in midfield.

They frustrated Chelsea for large parts, even when they grew tired with their 120-minute match against Glasgow City catching up with them.

There was time for a second wind and Ashworth-Clifford showed remarkable stamina, showing no fear against previous Champions League winner Lucy Bronze, who had been introduced at half time.

Many feared a heavy loss for the Scottish champions and they can take a heap of pride from this performance.

Depleted and disjointed Blues get job done

Bompastor was brave with a bounty of changes as she rested starts for the weekend showdown with Manchester City.

Her side started slowly and appeared somewhat disjointed.

However, once they fell behind, the shackles soon came off and their superiority shone through - but only in spells.

The former France international cut an annoyed figure on the sidelines as Chelsea failed to kill the game in the second half, in part due to Daugherty's fine reactions.

It was a far tougher task north of the border than the Blues would have liked, but as warm-ups for a WSL top-of-the-table encounter goes, it was quite a run-out.

What they said

Chelsea & Scotland midfielder Erin Cuthbert: "Getting the three points is probably the best part of the night. I don’t think our performance was amazing, but we have a game every three days, so we look forward.

"It was exciting, hostile sometimes – I was getting some pelters and quite enjoyed it.

"Celtic played well and deserve a lot of credit. They were structured, compact and made it really difficult for us. We need to be better next week."

Celtic head coach Elena Sadiku: "A bit gutted about the result, but I can only be proud of what my players. We're getting more confidence in this tournament and we know we can compete.

"We played amazing football, we were brave, we were confident and we played through their pressure."

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