This new era at Chelsea is brimming with expectation as Sonia Bompastor prepares for her first WSL fixture in charge of the club.
The reigning champions face Aston Villa at Kingsmeadow on Friday evening in the first test of their title defence. However, this season carries an air of uncertainty, with a new manager in the dugout for the first time in over a decade.
Former manager Emma Hayes delivered a fifth consecutive WSL trophy before her departure this summer, leaving behind a legacy where winning is the norm. Bompastor, her successor, is no stranger to the demands of top-tier football, having guided Lyon to three league titles and a Champions League crown during her time in charge.
“The ambitions are the same,” the 44-year-old said at the Barclays WSL’s 2024/25 season launch media day. “I don’t like to compare, but Chelsea is one of the most famous clubs in Europe, as Lyon was, so for me, coming to Chelsea is a big move and a big challenge.
“There is a responsibility and pressure on the result, as it was in my last experience. Maybe the big difference is my job with the media. Even if I was one of the leaders in Lyon, maybe the media was not that much.”
On the pitch, Bompastor is looking for evolution rather than revolution. Her style blends possession-based football with fast transitions and a desire to win the ball back quickly when it’s lost.
“I told the players [before the Feyenoord friendly] something really important: we want to be a dominant team,” she explained. “We have a lot of ambition, and when we don’t have the ball, I want all the players to make sure we recover it as fast as we can.
“When we have the ball, we like to have possession to control the game. I like when my players are able to scan and see when there is space or not. I think in the last game, the fans really enjoyed it, and the players did as well. Especially because we were able to score many goals from different players.
“We just want to enjoy and be efficient, so when the space is not there, we need to make sure we are patient and create the space.”
There have been significant changes to the playing squad over the summer as Bompastor stamps her authority on the team. Experienced figures such as Jess Carter, Fran Kirby, Melanie Leupolz, and Maren Mjelde were among those to depart, while Lucy Bronze, Sandy Baltimore, Oriane Jean-Francois, and Julia Bartel were just some of the…
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