Two matches, plenty of ugly records
Charlton Athletic have found the Women’s Super League the hard way. The newly promoted side have lost both of their opening games and are already turning up in the competition’s record books for all the wrong reasons.
The first stat says enough. Five shots across the first two rounds. No team had ever managed so few since the league began. Not one of those five efforts was on target, which is another first in WSL history.
The story unfolded in two painful chapters. Liverpool first thumped the Addicks 4-0 on their top-flight return. Everton then nicked a 1-0 win, thanks to a Leighanne Robe own goal in the 77th minute.
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A game without a shot on target
That meeting with the Toffees will go down as only the second WSL match in which neither side managed a shot on target.
Charlton also collected two red cards in the same game. Only two other teams had suffered that fate before: Manchester City against Chelsea in October 2023, and Bristol City against Liverpool in April 2012.
So Charlton still have no goals, no shots on target and no points. The third round comes quickly, with London City Lionesses next up at home.
Manchester City alone at the top
Elsewhere, the weekend threw up a few more surprises. West Ham beat London City Lionesses, who had started their season by beating Manchester United. Viviane Asseyi scored the winner and became the sixth player to reach 25 WSL goals for a club outside the traditional big four.
Chelsea bounced back from their opening draw by hammering Manchester United 5-0. Lauren James has attempted 19 shots across the first two rounds, the most ever by a player in the opening two games of a WSL season. United, by contrast, have managed just six shots in total and have shipped seven goals, more than any other side in the league.
Manchester City remain the only team with two wins, including a 4-1 success at Aston Villa. You have to go back to 2015 to find another season when just one club won its first two matches. The champions have already scored three times from corners, just one fewer than the other 13 clubs combined.
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