It’s off to Birmingham this weekend for Chelsea Women, unbeaten in their last five Women’s Super League outings against Birmingham City Women.

Emma Hayes’ footballers have to achieve another win to keep their place at the top of the league, with several key players (including Ann-Katrin Berger, Maren Mjelde, Millie Bright, Guro Reiten, Fran Kirby and Sophie Ingle) being kept out of the team which beat Spurs 5-1 to advance to the quarter-finals of the Continental Tyres Cup on a bitterly cold Wednesday night at Kingsmeadow.

Expect most of them to feature on Sunday afternoon, in a match being televised live on BT at 2.45pm.

If a warning was ever needed about Birmingham’s threat, it came in January this year when the Brummies pulled off a shock win against Chelsea Women.

Despite two goals from Erin Cuthbert at Kingsmeadow, Birmingham were 2-2 at the end of 90 minutes, then nabbed a winner two minutes into stoppage time.

Birmingham are having a poor season this time around, however. Only two points above the drop zone, they lie 10th in the table after losing four of their five WSL matches so far this campaign.

The last five visits to Birmingham have seen the Blues win without conceding a goal, and Hayes is determined that a defensive line led by Magda Eriksson maintains that run.

After that shock loss to Birmingham at the end of January, Chelsea have gone on a bit of a spree in the WSL… unbeaten in 12 matches (won 9, drawn 3), scoring 36 goals and conceding just eight.