Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor says she is confident that her side can still close the gap on Manchester City – and defend their Barclays Women’s Super League title.
The Blues beat Brighton 3-0 on Sunday in their final WSL match of the year – but they are still six points behind City, who lead the way.
And after the match, Bompastor spoke to Sky Sports, admitting: “From when I joined the club, we have always been at the top of the table. That’s the first time we are running in behind.
“That’s fine. Sometimes it happens. I still trust my players, I know the quality we have. There are still many games left in the table for us to be able to reverse the situation.
“Of course it will be tough, Man City are performing really well, we know Arsenal, Man United and all the teams in this league are really good, so it will be difficult, but we are confident, and that’s the only thing we can do, to have the belief. Everything is still possible.”
On Sunday’s match itself, she declared herself “really pleased” with both performance and result.
“As I said before the game, it was a must-win game,” she said. “We know we want to stay as close as possible to Man City. The game today was really crucial in terms of result.
“I’m really pleased with the performance – coming here, being able to score three goals, to create as much as we created and have a clean sheet it’s a really good performance and result.”
Sonia Bompastor: We need to hurt the opposition
Bompastor made two changes at the interval, bringing on Sam Kerr and Wieke Kaptein for Aggie Beever-Jones and Lauren James.
And asked what she had told her team at half-time, when they were one goal up courtesy of Sandie Baltimore, Bompastor said: “I always ask our team to be able to find a good balance between keeping the ball but also having the desire to hurt the opposition team.
“We need sometimes to improve our runs in behind, sometimes to have a more direct style of football, also sometimes to open the spaces in midfield. I think probably in the second half we were able to do that a little bit better than first half.”
