Manchester United vs Chelsea LIVE: Result and reaction as Emma Hayes’ side win WSL title after thrashing

Arsenal built it – and the fans came

On Tuesday, Arsenal announced that from next season the Emirates Stadium will become the main home of the women’s first team, with eight WSL matches and three Champions League group-stage encounters – if they qualify – to be played at the club’s main stadium, as well as the home legs of any of that competition’s knock-outs.

The Gunners, who have invested in focused marketing and support for their women’s team, have seen that resourcing pay off in crowds averaging 52,029 for their six matches at the Emirates, including two sell-outs and three WSL attendance records.

Arsenal forward Vivianne Miedema is to leave the club when her contract expires at the end of the season.

The 27-year-old Netherlands international has scored 125 goals and provided 50 assists in 172 appearances for the Gunners since joining from Bayern Munich in 2017.

She is the WSL’s record scorer with 78 goals and was the division’s Golden Boot winner for 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The first of those campaigns saw her help the team claim the league title under Joe Montemurro, to add to a League Cup triumph from the previous season.

Having suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in December 2022, she returned to action last October and has featured 13 times in all competitions for Jonas Eidevall’s team this season, including only three WSL starts, scoring once.

Title rivals Chelsea and Manchester City begin the final day of the Women’s Super League season level at the top of the table.

A back-and-forth battle has run all season long between the two clubs, with Manchester City hoping to prevent Chelsea securing a fifth consecutive title.

Gareth Taylor’s side appeared to have put themselves in pole position to win their second WSL when Liverpool shocked Chelsea at the start of May.

But a defeat to Arsenal in their penultimate fixture has left the door open for the London club, who will say farewell to manager Emma Hayes at the end of the season and would love to sign off with a trophy.

“If you don’t improve I’m selling you.”

A young Jess Carter is sat in the middle of a white-walled room at Chelsea’s training ground in Cobham, a tactics board behind her, a fleet of analysts and fitness staff, all armed with laptops, positioned on the outside, quietly looking in. Carter is chewing gum and looks bored, frustrated to have been hauled aside to hear the same old message. Facing her is Emma Hayes.

“I want you to show every f***ing day that you give a f*** about yourself,” Hayes says. “It’s up to you to decide your future.”

Four years later, it is clear what future Carter decided to choose.

Emma Hayes managed to find a way to reflect on her achievements while seeing the bigger picture. At Wembley last year, as Hayes sat with another winner’s medal around her neck – this time after Chelsea defeated Manchester United to win their third FA Cup in a row – there was a moment where she paused from the relentless of football management and its daily demands to focus on a wider journey. “When I sit at home alone and think about the work we do every day, and the sacrifices we all make, I know I’ve given my life to it,” she reflected.

There can be no arguing with that, not after 12 hugely successful seasons at Chelsea, the years working her way up the coaching ladder in the United States in her mid-20s, the countless hours before then trying to find the bottom rung in England, volunteering in community projects in her local Camden, doing anything she could to earn the coaching badges and certificates. At that stage, there was no identifiable end point, no professional game to aspire to reach. There was only a goal, or even a calling, to make an impact in women’s football, perhaps winning a trophy or two.

Hayes departs now not just as the most successful manager in the modern era of women’s football in England, but as a pioneer and advocate for a game that has changed beyond recognition while she has been at the forefront of it. When Hayes spoke, people listened, and in the years before Chelsea were selling out Stamford Bridge for a women’s game, or England were winning the Euros at Wembley, she shared a vision of where women’s football could get to, what was holding it back. She encouraged others to dream of progress and opportunity.