Sonia Bompastor has admitted that defeat to Arsenal on Saturday ‘hurts everyone’ but that she is confident Chelsea are ‘mentally strong’ and can ‘bounce back’.
After the first half, Chelsea were second best and goals from Beth Mead and Mariona Caldentey ensured the Blues were beaten 2-0. The result means Chelsea have lost for the first time at Stamford Bridge to Arsenal and for just the second time in domestic competition under Bompastor.
After the match Sonia Bompastor spoke to the media and The Halfway Line was present to hear from her.
Chelsea ‘not good enough’ today laments Sonia Bompastor
Sonia Bompastor spoke post-match about key turning points in the match, was it half time when the momentum shifted? Beth Mead’s opening goal came early in the second period and the Chelsea head coach pointed to that moment as the turning point,
“I would say probably in the game today, the turning point was the first goal Arsenal scored” Bompastor said.
“I think it was in a transitional moment in the game. And you know these games are between top teams most of the time defined by fine margins and the team who is able to take the lead in these type of games, yes, sometimes it helps a lot to be able to do that.
“So I would say that’s probably the turning point. And yeah, I didn’t watch the game again, but I just think, like probably today, as a team, we were not good enough in terms of the performance we put on the pitch to probably expect a better result.”
As far as where things went wrong today for Chelsea, Bompastor was careful and considered with her words,
“I think I want to analyse the game more as a team” she explained.
“I think from the game plan and what we wanted to do, probably we were not good enough.
“So again, when you play Arsenal, as you could see they are a great team with great players. And I think out of possession we could have dealt maybe better with some situation.
“I think sometimes we probably left too many space for them. And because they have really great players, they were able to use that space, and their technicality is high. And I think I was expecting probably us to be able to hold the ball a little bit more.
“Because when you are playing this type of team, I think when you have the ball, if you are not able to keep the ball for a certain amount of time, I think it becomes more difficult because you have to make lot of runs to defend. And yeah you just give them more confidence.”
‘Nine point gap would be a big, big gap’ says Bompastor
After defeat Chelsea are just one point ahead of Arsenal and could be as many as nine behind Manchester City by the end of the weekend. The Chelsea head coach was asked if the title race for her side was over,
“If [Manchester] City wins tomorrow, it becomes more difficult” Bompastor admitted.
“Nine point gap would be a big, big gap. But my mentality is really like to keep working hard, to give everything we can. Because, yeah, the gap is big but nothing is impossible.
“So we need to try to control what we can and focus in ourselves to make sure we put as much pressure as we can on Man City. But also we need to now protect our second place.
“That’s where we are, and yeah, it will be tough until the end. We have nine games left, but that’s the job we need to do.”
Bompastor explains ‘man marking’ system central to attempts to get back into the match
In the second half Bompastor made the decision to switch to a back four with Millie Bright withdrawn and Lucy Bronze and Naomi Girma remaining as centre back partners. The Halfway Line asked Bompastor about her thought process with that decision,
“I think when you are losing the game 1-0 or 2-0, you need to try something” Bompastor said.
“I think we stayed in the back four, but was more for me to stay in the man marking system, trying to go higher on the pitch, being more aggressive, to try to hurt Arsenal, recover the ball high.
“We had again not other options because we were losing the game, and we needed to try to take some risks. So even if sometimes I told my players like we went to a back four and in midfield with four and two up front.
“I just told the Sjo [Sjoeke Nüsken] at the end and Keira [Walsh] to be really high. And even if we were under load, it was something we needed to do to make sure we were at least trying to score one goal in this game.”
‘This result hurts everyone’ Sonia Bompastor admits
The Halfway Line asked Bompastor if she was hoping for a similar reaction to that which her team showed after their first league defeat to Everton. That reaction saw Chelsea score 30 goals in six games having scored 29 in the previous 14,
“I wouldn’t say I’m hoping for [a reaction] because I know my players, and I know the DNA we have in this club, so we need to bounce back.
“And yeah, I’m sure that this result hurts everyone, and the best way to bounce back it’s to have the good reaction. I think mentally, we are strong enough to stay confident we know the qualities we have in the squad.
“And yeah, that’s what we need to focus on making sure we have the good learnings from this game and looking at the future with confidence.”
