Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor says Millie Bright was ‘a great leader’ after the captain announced her immediate retirement from football.
The centre-back joined Chelsea from Doncaster Belles in 2014. Bompastor paid tribute to Bright, expressing great admiration of her and her career.
“I think a legend is retiring and I think Millie has done everything for Chelsea. She’s been Chelsea through and through. I think you don’t see that many players who are able to play for the same club for more than a decade. She’s been the captain and a great leader for this team.
“And when you talk about Chelsea being dominant, I think she won 20 trophies for the club, and she was the main leader for this team for so many years, so many seasons, and I had the chance to coach her as a player.
“I had the chance to know her as a person as well. I think she is an incredible player. She has done a lot for the women’s game in England. I think she was part of the growth of the women’s game in England. And I hope everyone understands that Millie will be missed for sure.”
Winning is part of Chelsea’s DNA, says Bompastor
Chelsea travel to the King Power Stadium on Sunday to face newly confirmed bottom-of-the-table Leicester City on the penultimate match day of this season’s Women’s Super League (WSL). Leicester lost heavily against Arsenal in midweek when they conceded seven goals and scored none.
Bompastor urges her side to focus on themselves. However, Chelsea will not win the WSL for the first time in over six years.
A UEFA Women’s Champions League (UWCL) qualifying spot is still very much on the line, though.
“I think we want to win every game until the end of the season. This one is no different from the other ones. It’s important for us to win. That’s part of our mentality, our DNA,” Bompastor says.
“And we’ll focus on ourselves as well,” she adds. “But obviously in football you never have an easy game. I think you need to make sure you go into every game with the right mentality to make sure you sometimes put a good performance to give you a good game and an easy game. But every team in this league is difficult to play against and I’m not expecting something different on Sunday.”
Chelsea’s eyes firmly on this weekend’s fixture
Chelsea narrowly beat Leicester City in the reverse fixture in September, with a seventh-minute goal from Aggie Beever-Jones sealing the 1-0 win for the Blues. Bompastor was complimentary of the way Leicester defended in that match. Meanwhile, she feels that her side has been doing better in front of goal since that last meeting.
“We faced at that time a really low block, a really compact block. They were aggressive and defending well, really well organised. So probably we can expect a back four, back five.
:I think we had many chances in that game. We couldn’t score more than one goal, which has been maybe the story in some of our games this season. I think we are in a better place right now.”
The manager predicts, “We are creating more chances, we are scoring more goals. So I’m expecting the team to be able to do the same on the game on the weekend.”
Beever-Jones back in the Chelsea squad, Bompastor confirms
Bompastor confirmed that Beever-Jones will be back in the squad for the Blues.
“I already said multiple times that it’s important going into every game to have as many players possible as available. And I think, yeah, Aggie has been doing great for us, so having her back in the squad is great news,” Bompastor said.
The rest of the Blues’ squad will be unchanged from last week’s match against Everton.
King Power Stadium will be the stage of Leicester City versus Chelsea. The match kicks off at 13:30 GMT and will be shown live on BBC Two.
