Kerr double sparks rout of ‘naive’ Liverpool

Humiliated, humbled and, frankly, embarrassed, it was probably arelief for Liverpool when the clock reached 90:00 and the referee Grace Lowe immediately blew the final whistle without adding any stoppage time, bringing a sympathetically early end to a chastening afternoon for the Reds, dismantled by a Chelsea side who barely needed to break sweat.

- Tom Garry

It is not supposed to be this easy ina quarterfinal between topflight sides. The scoreboard read 9-1. “At least it wasn’t 10,” one home fan said while trudging back to the car. The truth is, it could have been worse, had Chelsea not rather bizarrely had two set-piece goals ruled out for soft-looking fouls in the box that no Liverpool player seemed to appeal for.

Chelsea cruised to victory with a hat-trick from Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and two goals from an inform Sam Kerr, setting up a semifinal at Manchester City next month. For the home side, this was a new low ina dismal first half of their campaign.

Gareth Taylor, the Liverpool manager, said his team “were punished for all the errors we made”, adding:

“We were naive in some of our play and gifted them goals. You can’t do that against a team like Chelsea.