The Blues stunned London rivals Arsenal on their own patch with early strikes from Bethany England, Sam Kerr, Sophie Ingle and a second-half header from Guro Reiten doing the damage at Meadow Park.We were 3-0 up inside 20 minutes when England dispatched a curling effort into the top far corner to get us underway, and then three minutes later Kerr opened her Chelsea account with a leaping header beyond the Gunners goalkeeper.Yesterday’s player of the match, Sophie Ingle, extended our lead minutes later with a left-footed half-volley which flew past Manuela Zinsberger – a shot worthy of being in contention for Goal of the Season.A comeback for our hosts was practically out of sight when Reiten directed a powerful header into the back of the net in the 68th minute. Although the Gunners pulled one back with a quarter-of-an-hour left on the clock through Beth Mead, Hayes was always confident her side could produce such a performance.‘When you have great players who are great leaders who take great direction, responsibility, anything can be achieved. This is the best group I’ve had since I’ve been at Chelsea and they are in charge, I’m really just propping up the side while they run football matches.‘I thought there was a difference between the two teams today, we had a lot of leaders on the pitch.’

Read: Arsenal 1-4 Chelsea match report.

While Hayes was delighted for her new forward Kerr to net her first Chelsea goal, the Blues boss also took the time to praise her No.9, England, who made an impact early on with her bending effort.‘What a leap from Sam, what a ball from Guro [Reiten], wow,’ Hayes said. ‘But Beth England scored a worldie of a goal and deserves so much credit because there is so much talk of Ellen White, Jodie Taylor, that is England’s no.9 as far as I’m concerned.’‘She [Kerr] will improve here because you have to play differently in this country. She will become even better once she masters other components and that’s why she came to this country to improve. All the best players come here now and I’ve said it for a while, this will become the best league if it isn’t already and even better players will come at the end of the year.’Although we have now defeated reigning champions Arsenal twice in the league this term, and are currently unbeaten, Hayes knows there is a lot more work to be done if we are to lift the title come May.‘It’s three points in what was a game against a rival, not a title deciding game, they are different things. We are three points further ahead than we were at the beginning of the day. I thought we finally executed what I asked the team to do in the first 15 minutes of the game and for that reason we were three goals up.

‘We were all disappointed that we could not finish with a clean sheet but we were worthy winners and still unbeaten.‘I genuinely don’t look at it [the league table]. I know we are always going to be a game behind until the end so there is no point looking at it, we just take one game at a time.’ Hayes responded when asked whether the league is in our hands.‘It’s just too early, you think about it, we’ve all got up and coming games, three games a week coming up, a lot can happen in that period.‘We drew away at Liverpool and we drew away at Brighton, this is a team that is still to find it’s consistency, so definitely not.’Lastly, Hayes thanked the Chelsea faithful who turned up to Meadow Park in full force singing loud and clear and said: ‘It was an unbelievable game from the team today.‘They [the fans] deserve that because throughout the whole game today, that was all I could hear, our fans singing throughout – they were unreal.‘We play for the badge, we play for our football club and our football club means everything to our dressing room – this is a rivalry game and it matters.’

Our next game is an FA Cup tie away to Charlton Athletic this Sunday, but we’re back at Kingsmeadow on Sunday 2 February when we host West Ham United in the WSL.

Click here to buy your tickets now!