Sam Kerr’s love affair with the ladies’s FA Cup has blossomed once more with the Matildas’ celebrity firing one other consummate hat-trick to blast Chelsea into the fifth spherical.
On a day when fellow Matilda Caitlin Foord additionally obtained on the Cup scoreboard for goal-happy Arsenal, Kerr’s treble on her favourite residence patch at Kingsmeadow sank fellow Girls’s Tremendous League aspect Liverpool 3-2 and took her tally for the season in 16 targets in all competitions.
The 29-year-old maestro seems to be rediscovering a few of her sharpest kind within the new 12 months, having scored all three matches for the reason that begin of 2023, together with her double that helped knock Spurs out of the League Cup in midweek.
However, ominously for Chelsea’s opponents, Kerr reckoned she nonetheless had a lot to enhance upon in her sport after her strikes within the 32nd, 52nd and 79th minute on Sunday (Monday AEDT) maintained her exceptional report within the English ladies’s sport’s main Cup competitors.
She scored twice in final season’s last as Chelsea beat Manchester Metropolis, solely repeating her double within the showdown of the 2020-21 competitors in opposition to Arsenal at Wembley.
“There’s a lot that wants enchancment,” mentioned the Golden Boot-winning perfectionist.
“I want I might do that each week however that is a striker’s life, proper – generally they go in, generally they do not.
“However when my teammates are placing in balls like they did immediately, it is fairly straightforward for me to attain.”
She was certainly arrange excellently for her treble, with fullback Niamh Charles sending over the cross from which she volleyed residence a shocking first-half opener after which her trusted supplier Frank Kirby teed her as much as slot residence their second after the break.
Liverpool hit again with a thunderous strike from Ceri Holland earlier than Kerr made it 3-1 with a trademark close-range header from one other Charles supply, and the respiratory house was wanted as Liverpool once more hit again with a late Gemma Bonner objective.
Requested why she loved scoring at Chelsea’s modest Kingsmeadow residence a lot, Kerr shrugged: “I do not know … as a result of I dwell 9 minutes away, can sleep in my very own mattress, eat my very own meals! I similar to being at residence taking part in in entrance of our wonderful followers. There’s one thing good about Kingsmeadow.”
In the meantime, Foord kicked off a objective rush for WSL giants Arsenal in opposition to decrease league aspect Leeds, netting from shut vary within the 10th minute to set them on their strategy to a 9-Zero win.
