Since this article was published, this game has been called off due to a coronavirus outbreak in the Chelsea Women squad. A new date for the game will be confirmed in due course.

Chelsea Women need to bounce back after their second defeat of the Women's Super League season last weekend allowed Arsenal to open up a four-point gap at the top of the table.

West Ham United Women are the visitors to Kingsmeadow on Sunday, and they enter this London derby on a five-game unbeaten run across all competitions.

Match preview

Since winning last season's FA Cup title at the beginning of December, Chelsea have struggled to handle the amount of games they have had to play this month.

Last weekend the Blues travelled to the Select Car Leasing Stadium where they faced an in-form Reading side, and Deanne Rose's fourth minute strike was enough to send Chelsea to a 1-0 defeat despite the visitors recording 34 shots in total.

Another away game followed as Emma Hayes's side had to travel to Germany on Thursday to face Wolfsburg in the final group game of the Champions League, where all they needed to qualify was to avoid defeat.

The Blues found themselves 2-0 down at the break and the German outfit went on to double that advantage, meaning that last year's runners-up crashed out at the group stage on goal difference after Wolfsburg, Juventus and Chelsea all finished on 11 points.

That was an extremely disappointing evening for Chelsea, who would have aimed to go one better than last year and win the Champions League this time around, but they have no time to dwell on the result as three points is vital on Sunday to stop Arsenal potentially going seven points clear.

West Ham will prove to be as tough a test as any at the moment with the good form they find themselves in, and that continued in the League Cup on Wednesday when they beat Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0 in Group E.

Kate Longhurst, Melisa Filis and Katerina Svitkova ensured the three points stayed in East London and Olli Harder's side progress in that competition having recorded a 100% return from their three games.

Last Sunday, the Hammers earned a point in Merseyside where they faced Everton, as Zaneta Wyne's strike for the visitors was cancelled out by Toni Duggan's 76th-minute goal for the game to end in a 1-1 draw.

An away game against the reigning WSL champions is never an easy task, but perhaps West Ham will be glad that their turn to visit Kingsmeadow has fallen this weekend after Chelsea have experienced one of their worst weeks in a long time.

In this fixture last year, Chelsea came out on top as 3-2 winners but the second game of that campaign involving these two teams was more comfortable for the Blues, who secured a 2-0 win, with the Hammers expected to run their hosts close this weekend.