The massive query firstly of this season – the identical one which’s been requested during the last six WSL campaigns – is whether or not anybody can finish Chelsea’s dominance.

The Blues gained final time period’s trophy by going 22 video games unbeaten in Sonia Bompastor’s first season on the helm – a part of a home treble as they lifted the Ladies’s FA Cup and League Cup too.

In truth, it has been greater than 500 days since Chelsea final misplaced a league sport – a 4-3 defeat at Liverpool on 1 Might, 2024.

Manchester United got here near ending that streak on Friday night time in a top-two encounter and Skinner was pleased with “essentially the most courageous efficiency” from his gamers.

“We’re constructing. You may see it, you’ll be able to sense it,” he stated.

“We’re disenchanted to not win the sport. The possibilities we created, not many groups might create that in opposition to Chelsea. So for us to try this and in the best way we did it was credit score to them [the players].”

Since their promotion from the Ladies’s Championship in 2019, United have quickly emerged as WSL title contenders, ending simply two factors behind Chelsea in 2022-23.

The next season they gained the FA Cup – their first main girls’s trophy.

Whereas a draw in opposition to the present league leaders could also be deemed a missed alternative for United, former England striker White believed it confirmed how far the membership has come.

“It’s important to have a look at that consistency,” she stated. “They’ve performed 11 occasions in opposition to Chelsea now and solely drawn as soon as, now the second time, so I feel it is actually good for his or her consistency and what they’re doing as a membership and a group.

“It exhibits it is working they usually’re bettering.”

Requested if Skinner deserved extra credit score for United’s rise to compete with extra established golf equipment, White added: “What he is carried out with these gamers, the philosophy, the DNA, how resolute they’re.

“He hasn’t obtained the sum of money or been in a position to spend the sum of money the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal or [Manchester] Metropolis have carried out.”