Gilly Flaherty's second half header meant West Ham left Kingsmeadow with a share of the spoils on a frustrating day for Chelsea.

The day will be remembered more for the presentation and guard of honour celebrating Drew Spence’s ten-year anniversary for the Blues than for the match itself, with the second half in particular lacking clear-cut opportunities.

Yet the home side will feel they did more than enough before the break to put the game beyond their visitors, and manager Emma Hayes affirmed this after the final whistle. She claimed: “That’s the story of our domestic campaign – dominate, create enough chances, don’t convert enough of them, and get hit with a sucker punch in one moment.”

Hayes’s side were in the ascendency from the off, with Bethany England and Spence both firing wide from inside the box within the opening six minutes.

The Blues continued to dominate and created chance after chance, most notably England seeing her shot from close range strike the near post, but it looked as if West Ham would get to half-time level until the deadlock was broken just three minutes before the interval.

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After Erin Cuthbert looped a free-kick to the far post, England was able to stoop low to head the ball home and give Chelsea a deserved lead.

Things began to change after the break, with Matt Beard’s double change for the visitors paying dividends as his side began to gain more of a foothold in the game.

It took until the 64th minute for the Hammers to get their first attempt on goal, Carly Telford forced into a smart stop at her near post from Jane Ross, but from the resulting corner the visitors were level.

Following a goal-mouth scramble, the ball fell to Leanne Kiernan on the left side of the box, and her lofted cross was headed down and into the net by former Chelsea defender Flaherty to bring the scores level.

Based on the way they came out after the break the goal was not undeserved, and the Hammers began to push on and get further up the pitch to take the game to their hosts.

As the game drew to a close however, Chelsea took control of the match once more, and could have won it late on. Their best chance fell to England again, her looping volley after a defensive mix-up flying over with just the goalkeeper to beat, then the visitors survived an almighty goalmouth scramble in almost the last kick of the game.

But survive they did, meaning Chelsea’s final home game of the season ended in frustration.