Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor urged her side to turn words into action if they are to fulfil ambitions of winning the Women’s Super League, following a 1-1 draw away to Leicester that saw her side drop points for the first time this season.
“Really frustrated about the performance today, frustrated about the result,” said the Chelsea manager. “I think when we talk about ambitions, actually we need to turn the words into action, and I need my players to be ready from the beginning of the game.”
“I think if you analyse this game, the first half was not intense enough from us. We didn’t show our intentions and I think we got punished for that. The second half was better from our side, we created a lot more opportunities but we only scored one, we were not efficient enough to win this game.”
Substitute Missy Goodwin finished off a counter-attack to give Leicester a surprise lead after 20 minutes. Bompastor analysed, “The players need to realise this league is competitive and if you don’t show up from the beginning of every game, you don’t get good results.”
“Sometimes when another team plays a really good game you need to give credit- today I give credit to Leicester because they were strong defensively, they were together and mentally tough.”
Bompastor continued, “But I think we have more talent than that and we have to be able to beat this team today. If you have the ambitions to finish top of the table, you can’t drop points like the game today.”
Wieke Kaptein rescued Chelsea with 14 minutes remaining, picking out the bottom corner from range after driving through midfield. “It was talent,” Bompastor reflected. “She just decided to go on the 1v1, she created space and she shot on goal and was able to score. That’s talent. And in these type of games you need to have this talent on the pitch, this creativity helps a lot more.”
