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The Blues are looking to win our first FA Cup trophy since the 2017/18 campaign, where an Eden Hazard penalty ensured we beat Manchester United 1-0 at Wembley.

At this stage last season, the Blues were paired with Morecambe at Stamford Bridge, with goals from Mason Mount, Timo Werner, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Kai Havertz ensuring a 4-0 win and our passage into the fourth round.

The ties are set to take place across the weekend of 7 to 10 January, with the exact dates to be announced in due course.

Third round draw in full

Boreham Wood or St Albans v AFC Wimbledon
Yeovil Town v AFC Bournemouth
Stoke City v Leyton Orient
Swansea City v Southampton
Chelsea v Chesterfield
Liverpool v Shrewsbury Town
Cardiff City v Preston North End
Coventry City v Derby County
Burnley v Huddersfield Town
West Bromwich Albion v Brighton
Kidderminster Harriers v Reading
Leicester City v Watford
Mansfield Town v Middlesbrough
Hartlepool United v Blackpool
Hull City v Everton
Bristol City v Fulham
Tottenham Hotspur v Morecambe
Millwall v Crystal Palace
Port Vale v Brentford
Swindon Town v Manchester City
Wigan Athletic v Blackburn Rovers
Luton Town v Harrogate Town
Birmingham City v Plymouth Argyle
Manchester United v Aston Villa
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Sheffield United
Newcastle United v Cambridge United
Barnsley v Ipswich Town or Barrow
Peterborough United v Bristol Rovers
West Ham United v Leeds United
Queens Park Rangers v Rotherham United
Charlton Athletic v Norwich City
Nottingham Forest v Arsenal

We beat the Gunners at Wembley to win the FA Cup for the third time in our history and earn a domestic quadruple of WSL, FA Cup, Continental Cup and Community Shield for 2021.

The scoreline could have been even more emphatic, with Kerr one of several players to miss good first-half chances to add to Fran Kirby’s early strike, but player of the match Kerr doubled the lead with a superb run and clever near-post strike that wrong-footed goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger, and after taking on board some words of wisdom from Blues goalkeeper Telford at the interval, the Australian’s exquisite dinked effort on the run made it 3-0.

‘It could have been four or five nil in the first half,’ Kerr said. ‘It wouldn’t go in but we knew it was coming.

‘At half-time we hadn’t scored as many as we should. CT said she [Zinsberger] is off her line a lot. I hadn’t been finishing too well in the first half so I thought I would try and scoop her. It doesn’t come off too often but it did.

‘Whenever as a striker you are not putting them in the back of the net when they are simple chances you get a little frustrated.

‘But it’s about who can keep their head and we knew if we could get one more, we would probably bury them and we did. We got the second and went on to get the third and it was game over.

‘We deserved it. We played really well and have been playing well in the past few weeks. We kind of went in as underdogs so had a point to prove so we are buzzing.

‘Our defence was amazing, our midfield was electric. It was a real team effort.’

The general consensus in the game’s aftermath was that Chelsea had played well for large periods but were hampered by costly mistakes, including the concession of a penalty after slow build-up play at the back.

Mount insisted that playing out from defence would remain part of the team’s style but admitted that knowing when and where to play short or long was key.

‘Our philosophy is to play so we always try to do that but sometimes the ball does have to go [be kicked long],’ he explained.

‘Over the past couple of games we’ve started to make mistakes which we haven’t really made in the past. We’re a team that doesn’t give away many chances but here we’ve conceded three and that’s something we need to look at.’

Making his third successive start, the 25-year-old was heavily involved throughout, registering the third-highest amount of touches in the game and as many successful take-ons as the West Ham team combined.

However, our number 12 felt lapses of concentration and individual errors proved costly once again, insisting that the team must quickly rid themselves of such issues in order to regain form at a critical time in the season.

‘It’s just a case of mistakes and luck for them. We’ve had a few mistakes over the past couple of games that we’ve never had before and sometimes it happens in football.

Thirteen minutes remained, but the game was all over bar the shouting. Hayes made a triple substitution late on that was well received by the Blues section of the Wembley crowd, as Spence, Ji and Bethany England were introduced. Aniek Nouwen also got on before stoppage-time was complete, getting a few seconds to soak up a winning Wembley cup final as a Chelsea player.

The final whistle was greeted by a roar from the stands and on the pitch, as the celebrations could begin in earnest. For the third time in our history, Chelsea Women were FA Cup winners, only this time it was different. Our previous two triumphs had been part of Doubles, as we were also crowned WSL winners; now it was as part of a Treble, along with the Continental League Cup, or even a Quadruple, with the Community Shield also won back in August 2020.

Whatever you want to call it, one thing was clear as Eriksson became the second Chelsea skipper to get her hands on the FA Cup, after Katie Chapman. The Blues are the dominant side in English football in 2021. Of that there can be no doubt.

We are next in action on Wednesday 8 December when we face Juventus at Kingsmeadow in the Women’s Champions League. Our fifth Group A fixture of the season gets under way at 8pm. Tickets for that game are still available – click here to buy yours now!

Chelsea (3-4-3) Berger; Bright, Carter, Eriksson (c); Cuthbert, Ingle (Nouwen 90+4), Leupolz (Ji 86), Reiten (Spence 86); Kirby (Harder 74), Kerr (England 86), Fleming
Unused subs Musovic, Charles, Andersson, Fox
Scorers Kirby 3, Kerr 57, 77
Booked Cuthbert 45

Arsenal (4-3-3) Zinsberger; Maritz, Wubben-Moy (Boye 87), Beattie (Foord 70), Catley; Maanum (Parris 80), Walti (Iwabuchi 61), Little (c); Mead, Miedema, McCabe
Unused subs Williams, Patten, Nobbs, Schnaderbeck, Goldie
Booked Mead 8, McCabe 65, Parris 81

Referee Helen Conley

Crowd 40,942

Chance comparison

Despite losing the game, the visitors came out on top in most of the key performance metrics including shots (19 to West Ham’s 11), completed passes (507 to 250) and possession (64 per cent to 36 per cent).

However, the actual quality of our big chances as measured by xG was the lowest since a narrow victory at Brentford in October, with David Moyes’s side more efficient in carving out better opportunities from their fewer attacks and coming out with a shot conversion rate of 27 per cent, almost three times that of the Blues. Part of that was also down to individual mistakes handing the hosts the initiative, including the concession of a penalty and a speculative cross from Masuaka beating Mendy late on.

As the average positions graphic below shows, our shape was a little disjointed and the wing-backs less advanced than we have normally seen this season under Tuchel, with the attacking trio of Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Mount congested into a small central pocket. West Ham matched our shape and had joy in pushing Reece James and Marcos Alonso back.

On every date between now and Christmas, we will bring you a quick quiz on a famous player or players who have worn that number on the back of their shirts for Chelsea.

Today you have questions on no less than five players to test your knowledge, with current defender Andreas Christensen joining his predecessor David Luiz, pass master Cesc Fabregas, the ultimate anchor man Claude Makelele and revolutionary Dutch master Ruud Gullit.

That’s quite some list of number fours, so try our quiz and find out how well you know them. Just like with an advent calendar, you can come back and open a new quiz every day until Christmas Day. Unfortunately we can’t give you all a chocolate to enjoy with your quiz, but feel free to treat yourself if you score high. Good luck and merry quiz-mas!

Having gone ahead through Thiago Silva, the Blues gave away a penalty and then despite Mason Mount restoring the lead, we allowed the home side to score twice in the second half, the frustrating winner coming late on with the aid of a deflection.

‘I don’t see our performance as different than against Man United,’ said Tuchel as he began his summing up.

‘The performance is enough to even win the game but what we clearly see is that we give easy goals away and this is very unusual. We make big mistakes and we have done this now for three matches, against Man United, Watford and again today. If you do this at this kind of level you cannot expect to have results.

‘If you want clean sheets, if you want to dominate games, if you want to protect yourself against counter-attacks, it’s impossible to do these kinds of mistakes. We did that now three times in a row and it is simply too much.

‘We cannot give any excuses that we are tired. It’s absolutely normal to be tired if you play Premier League through winter. It is a question of absolute focus. It’s a question of detail. It’s a question of precision and it’s a question of risk management – where you take the risk and where you absolutely don’t take the risk.

‘If you invite a team like West Ham United into the last 20 metres by giving big ball losses then you are in trouble. This is a no-brainer.’

Tuchel refuses at this stage to consider the impact of the defeat on the title challenge, instead concerning himself with more immediate matters.

‘The [title] race is not interesting at the moment,’ he said, ‘What is interesting is the next 90 minutes and having the focus right and the attitude right and taking care about the details. We are not good enough on the details in the moment. We do too many big mistakes and we need to care about the details. There is no need to ask big questions or start doubting the big picture. If you play at West Ham it is about details and without doing big mistakes, there is a big chance that we win in this game.’

Goalie form and injury update

It was Edouard Mendy who conceded the penalty when he delayed on the ball after a poor pass from Jorginho.

‘Edou is going through a rough period,’ admitted our head coach. ‘I don’t know why exactly but he seems to have lost a bit of confidence. His decision making was not on the highest level today but with the first goal we also put him in a really awkward situation. He could have saved the situation, he did not, and we are far away from blaming anybody but we need to admit that we do too many crucial mistakes at the moment that cost us a potential win against Man United and cost us today a potential win.’

Chelsea (3-4-3): Mendy; Christensen, Thiago Silva, Rudiger; James, Jorginho (c), Loftus-Cheek, Alonso (Pulisic 73); Ziyech (Hudson-Odoi 64), Havertz (Lukaku h-t), Mount
Unused subs Kepa, Azpilicueta, Sarr, Barkley, Saul, Werner
Scorers Thiago Silva 28, Mount 44
Booked Jorginho 23, James 90+2, Christensen 90+4

West Ham (3-5-2): Fabianski; Dawson, Zouma (Fornals 71), Diop; Coufal, Soucek, Rice (c), Lanzini (Benrahma 85), Johnson (Masuaku 45+2); Bowen, Antonio
Unused subs Areola, Kral, Vlasic, Noble, Ashby, Yarmolenko
Scorers Lanzini 40 pen, Bowen 56, Masuaku 87
Booked Coufal 90+1

Referee Andre Marriner
 

‘For many weeks there was not an offer that interested him, so it was always clear. For me, I love Kurt and I told him I love him. I said we don’t need to do these talks because I am happy if you stay, even if Trevoh comes in.

‘I said you are a top-quality player and you have to fight for your place and you always have a chance to play but it is hard competition.’

The Lyon-born defender has started all of West Ham’s last 10 Premier League games and scored the winner in a 3-2 win over Liverpool just under a month ago. 

‘He was always a top guy in the dressing room and a top guy on the pitch,’ Tuchel beamed. ‘I mean, his second name is happy! This is really for a reason. He has the biggest smile that you can imagine. When he smiles, you are instantly also happy.