The quarter-finals of the Subway Women’s League Cup took place on Wednesday evening with eight teams in action across four games.

Arsenal are the current holders of the competition having narrowly beat Chelsea 1-0 in extra-time at Molineux last year. The Gunners have also won the competition more than any other team with seven titles to their name, followed by Manchester City on four.

Five of the eight places in the quarter-finals were determined by the group stage which took place in the first half of the season. The remaining three spots were reserved for the teams competing in the group stage of the Champions League, so Chelsea, Arsenal and City entered the competition at this point.

This year’s final will take place on March 15 at Pride Park, the home of Derby County Football Club. The stadium has a capacity of over 33,000 and this will be the first time a final in this competition will be staged there.

Here, 90min breaks down everything that happened in the quarter-final games on Wednesday night and what comes next…

Durham were the lowest ranked team left in the competition after the group stage, so the Championship club faced a significant task going away to Chelsea in the first knockout game. They held their ground for the first 20 minutes at Kingsmeadow, but Aggie Beever-Jones broke the deadlock soon after.

Midfielder Oriane Jean-Francois added a second with a sublime strike just after the hour mark to put the result beyond doubt and a flurry of goals then came for Chelsea. Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten and Maika Hamano scored the third, fourth and fifth in the space of five minutes between the 73rd and 75th.

The second Manchester derby in the space of a week took place at Leigh Sports Village, but it wasn’t quite the goal-fest witnessed at the Etihad on Sunday evening. Manchester City opened the scoring on this occasion with 12 minutes gone and it was Laura Coombs with the goal.

Manchester United defender Millie Turner levelled the scoreline just after the 30-minute mark, but City acted quickly to restore their lead. 18-year-old Lily Murphy scored the winner for City on the brink of half-time as Gareth Taylor’s side enacted revenge for the weekend’s defeat against their bitter rivals in the WSL.

Arsenal travelled to face Brighton, who have enjoyed a promising first half of the season in the league. It was a cagey affair at Broadfield Stadium as the games remained goalless for more than an hour.

In the space of five minutes in the second half, Renee Slegers’ side scored three through Frida Maanum, Katie McCabe and Kyra Cooney-Cross to spark the game into life. Mariona Caldentey then added the fourth in the final minutes as Arsenal kept their hopes of retaining the trophy alive.

The final game of the evening was between Tottenham and West Ham, both of which qualified for the knockout rounds by finishing top of their respective groups. Spurs landed the first blow at Brisbane Road as Martha Thomas opened the scoring for the hosts on 10 minutes.

The visitors then fought back valiantly before the half-time whistle as Seraina Piubel put them back on level terms before Kirsty Smith fired them ahead soon after. A goalless second half meant it was West Ham who progressed into the semi-finals of the competition.

Winner of SF 1 vs Winner of SF 2 – Saturday 15 March

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