At the other end of the table Paris St-Germain went bottom with a fourth succesive defeat, this time losing 3-1 at home to Bayern Munich. Barcelona have dominated previous fixtures against Chelsea, losing only once in eight meetings. They have knocked the Londoners out of the Champions League in each of the last three seasons, last year by a crushing aggregate score of 8-2.

This time, however, they were fortunate to come away with a point as Chelsea found the touch that has been beyond them so far this season both in Europe and at home. "It was a good game," said Barcelona manager Pere Romeu. "It's very different to the last semi-finals as Chelsea matched all the players we had and that limited us."

Australian international Ellie Carpenter gave Chelsea the lead after 16 minutes when she hammered home from the edge of area after being put away by Aggie Beever-Jones near halfway. The Catalans levelled eight minutes later when Claudia Pina's corner led to a scramble in the Chelsea box. When the ball fell at the feet of Ewa Pajor she smashed it past Livia Peng and into the top right corner.

From then on, Chelsea had the best chances. Before half-time Wieke Kaptein hit the inside of the post after a lovely lay-off from Alyssa Thompson. In the second half, substitute Catarina Macario had a goal disallowed for a marginal offside while Carpenter, with the goal at her mercy, dragged her shot just wide.

"I think we were the better team tonight, we had a really good performance and created a lot of opportunities," Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor told the BBC. "We scored a great goal. I'm happy but frustrated because we could have won the game."

The draw lifts Chelsea to sixth in the table but they were leapfrogged by Bayern, who put PSG to the sword in Paris. PSG captain Sakina Karchaoui gave her side the perfect start when she put them ahead in the 16th minute but a minute later Linda Dallmann put the visitors back on level terms.

Just after the half-hour Momoko Tanikawa slipped through the PSG defence before drilling the ball into the back of the net, Jovana Damnjanovic completing the win a minute from time. Atletico Madrid climbed to eighth as they won 4-0 at Twente thanks to first-half goals from Amaiur Sarriegi and Julia Bartel and second-half strikes from Synne Jensen and Fiamma.

Roma picked up their first point with a 1-1 draw at Leuven.Â Evelyne Viens put the Italians ahead in the 18th minute but Jada Conijnenberg's 71st minute penalty meant the points were shared.

E. Carpenter

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