It's become a familiar story for Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United in the past few years in the WSL. A great run of form leading into a title showdown with Chelsea, only to be beaten by the Blues. Sonia Bompastor or Emma Hayes, the results have so far been the same. If anything, they've been better under Bompastor than they were with Hayes.
Chelsea were fortunate to beat Arsenal on Sunday, but they beat the Gunners nonetheless. The penalty which gave the Blues their 1 - 0 win was certainly controversial, but as Arsenal manager Renee Slegers highlighted after the game, her side had plenty of chances to kill the game off let alone take the lead before the penalty.
The result actually drops Arsenal to fourth after both Manchester clubs won this weekend, but their electrifying form under Slegers makes them the most likely candidates to finish second to Chelsea, and yet for all their chances at Stamford Bridge, they couldn't score.
Fixtures are kind for Bompastor's side until March, with neither City nor United on the WSL fixtures list until the 23rd March, when Chelsea go to City.
This makes the title almost a foregone conclusion despite it being January, as the Blues hold a seven point lead over Manchester United with ten games to go. So what exactly can the rest of the league do about Chelsea's serial dominance of the English women's game?
The Stats
There is just one single stat that Chelsea don't champion in this WSL season, and that is their defensive record. While Manchester United have conceded just five goals all season (two of them to City earlier this month), the league leaders have conceded a comparatively huge... six.
What makes this minor difference even more irrelevant is the fact that Chelsea have scored 37 goals to United's 23, giving the Blues a goal difference 13 better than United and 12 better than rivals Arsenal.
At the other end of the pitch, Chelsea's dominance is even clearer; Bompastor's side have scored 37 goals, ten more than next higher scorers Manchester City.
The route of this incredible goal burst for Chelsea is their ability to spread the goals. With 37 goals in the team (in the league alone) it's remarkable to learn that no player has more than seven league goals.
Even then, their leading goalscorer in the league with those seven goals is their penalty taker, Guro Reiten, who has scored twice from the spot. Incidentally, both of those penalties have come in significant 1 - 0 wins over Arsenal and Manchester United.
If anyone is likely to catch the Blue it will probably be Arsenal or United, largely because their defensive records are superior to Manchester City's. Like Chelsea, Arsenal have conceded just six goals this season, with United one better on five; City have conceded 14.
Defensive injuries have hurt City, especially Alex Greenwood's, but whatever the cause, City have to find a way to shutdown games more efficiently if they want to be serious title contenders.
In reality though Chelsea would lose to both City and United and still win the title if they win the rest, and after 12 games under Bompastor in the WSL, the Blues have dropped just two points.
This is the best start a team has ever made to a league season in the WSL era. So can it change?
Beating the Blues
In an individual game, all three challengers have shown themselves to be capable of going toe-to-toe with Chelsea. All three of them beat Emma Hayes' side in her final season at Stamford Bridge and City took the fight right to the last day.
This season however has been imperious from Chelsea. Sonia Bompastor looks to have managed to crack the WSL code at the first attempt, making the best start of any manager in the league's history.
Stopping Chelsea comes down to being perfect. This has often been talked about with beating Manchester City to the Premier League title, but in the men's game this is an exaggeration.
Even Pep Guardiola's very best Premier League points return of 100 points in 2017/2018 still included 14 dropped points. That season, City got 87.7% of available points; so far, Chelsea have 93.9% of points.
Given that the Blues have dropped points just once, rivals would quite literally have to be perfect to be ahead of them at this point.
Arsenal had come close to this under Renee Slegers, but in all likelihood the damage to their title challenge was already done by the poor end to Jonas Eidevall's time in North London.
Likewise for Manchester United, the lull in results that occurred in Ella Toone's two-month absence seems to have cost them a chance at giving Chelsea a run for their money.
City may have had a chance had they beaten United in the derby, but the Citizen are still yet to win a league game against any of their top four rivals, drawing with Arsenal and losing to both United and Chelsea.
Ultimately, it looks pretty conclusive in Chelsea's favour just one game into the second half of the WSL season, and it's not an unfamiliar picture.
Is Chelsea's Dominance Becoming an Issue?
To say it's a problem is unfair on Chelsea more than anything else because the Blues haven't done anything wrong. But the fact that the Champions have lost just eight games in the past six seasons shows that no one else is anywhere near their standard at the moment.
All three of the other big four clubs have come close, with City, United and Arsenal all taking Chelsea to the final day once each in the past three seasons. But still it was Emma Hayes' side who came out on top.
Sonia Bompastor's team have been even more emphatic in the WSL and both cup competitions, reaching the Subway League Cup semi-finals and thrashing Durham 5 - 0 in the FA Cup.
For the rest of the WSL's top four, cup titles are realistically the limit. Chelsea are so dominant in the league that this league title is probably a foregone conclusion.
Arsenal are double League Cup champions and their only defeat under Slegers was Sunday's loss to Chelsea, which will encourage the Gunners in their pursuit of a cup title.
There's also the Champions League, which the two London rivals are still in alongside Manchester City.
Even though the league won't have much of a title race though, the growth of the WSL is still evident. 34,402 people attended Chelsea's derby win over Arsenal at Stamford Bridge, and while this is some 25,000 short of the league attendance record at the Emirates, it was a record for a Chelsea home game.
Below the title race, the other three sides are still competitive in terms of competing for the Champions League places. Under the new format coming in next season, the second place side will enter the competition later than the side finishing third, and with only three points between second and fourth, there's still a battle to be had there.
But in terms of the league title? It's Chelsea's the lose, for better or worse.
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