The England right-back finally broke the deadlock in a gripping contest at Leigh Sports Village when she glanced a corner past impressive home goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce 16 minutes from time.
Arsenal’s 5-2 defeat by Aston Villa earlier on Wednesday meant the Blues needed just a point against United to wrap up yet another league success, their eighth in 10 seasons and a first under new manager Sonia Bompastor.
Victory also kept Chelsea on course for an unbeaten WSL season.
“We obviously knew a draw was good enough, we wanted to be unbeaten and before the game we wanted to keep a clean sheet and it’s really nice to score the goal and get the win as well,” Bronze told Sky Sports.
“It makes it feel a lot better to celebrate being champions when you win a game.
“Although we’ve won the league tonight we know we’ve still got two games (left), we want to win those games and be unbeaten all season.”
Bompastor took over as manager from the long-serving and successful Emma Hayes, now in charge of the United States women’s national team.
But while the Frenchwoman has added to Chelsea’s domestic roll of honour, the women’s Champions League continues to remain frustratingly elusive.
Chelsea endured an aggregate 8-2 semi-final thrashing against Barcelona.
“It’s hard to focus on so many competitions,” said Bronze. “We have always said that.
“We have done fantastically well to keep ourselves in all of them close to the end. it was nice to come here to celebrate a win, the title and move forward and past the disappointment of the weekend.”
By AFP
