Chelsea’s invincibles: Sonia Bompastor’s team is already looking to the future

The last time there was a trophy lifted at Stamford Bridge, it was 2017 and Antonio Conte had led his Chelsea team to a Premier League title in his debut season. In the intervening eight years, league success has been hard to find around these parts, but not around this club.

When Chelsea walked down the tunnel, given a guard of honour by their opponents Liverpool in a role reversal of their male counterparts last weekend, they already knew they had won a sixth consecutive league title. The aim on Saturday lunchtime was clear – an invincible season and a record points tally.

That was eventually secured in the 91st minute as Aggie Beever-Jones scored her ninth league goal of the season.

A former Everton loanee, Beever-Jones has made a habit of scoring against Liverpool, with this being her seventh goal in eight appearances.

Chelsea had not lost at home to Liverpool since their first ever Women’s Super League home game against them in 2011, so perhaps it was not that much of a surprise that they were able to stay unbeaten. But as the golden streamers rained down and Millie Bright once again lifted the trophy, there was still a sense that the magnitude of what they had done was only now sinking in.

“It’s just absolutely mental,” said Scotland midfielder Erin Cuthbert, after the win. “I’m only about titles but Sonia said she’s after the records so, so am I.”

“Even this season, I was not expecting to be able to [go unbeaten],” said manager Sonia Bompastor in her post-match press conference.

“When it came to the win against Manchester United, I started to personally think about being unbeaten in the league. Before that I was just focused on the fact we had to be champions.”

Chelsea are the first Women’s Super League side to go unbeaten across a 22-game season, but arguably the most impressive element of their campaign was the six wins and 18 points that came against their title rivals, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United.

The question for next season will be – as it has been in each of the past six seasons – what they can do to close the gap on the ever-winning and seemingly ever-improving rivals.

Chelsea finished 12 points ahead of Arsenal in second. That is a significant gap compared to previous years when the title was decided by a handful of points or in the case of last year, goal difference.

Their London rivals played out a 4-3 thriller against Manchester United on the final day of the season to secure that second spot after a late wobble saw them lose to Aston Villa and Brighton. But it felt telling that in their past three games Arsenal had conceded 12 goals. Chelsea conceded 13 all season.

There have been explanations for why Chelsea have been so much better this year.

Arsenal dropped points early on in the dying throes of Jonas Eidevall’s time as manager. Their run to the Champions League final shows that there might be bright shoots under Renee Slegers, if the end of the season run is taken as evidence of a lack of enthusiasm rather than a genuine tactical concern.

Manchester City also had to deal with a departing manager, on top of an injury list that looked like it would be a more convincing title challenger than the players they have had fit. Their women’s football hierarchy has evolved with Therese Sjögran coming in as the Director of Women’s Football, which should streamline the direction the team takes.

Meanwhile, Manchester United undoubtedly improved this year but do not have anywhere near the kind of squad quality to compete with Chelsea. A strong young core might set them in good stead – if they can hold onto them, which has been the issue in the past.

Bompastor’s arrival, and the intensity that her Chelsea team started at, appeared to take opponents by surprise.

By the time they beat Arsenal 1-0 at the end of January, their opponents were far behind in the rearview mirror.

The Chelsea manager is aware that there will not be that same element of surprise come next season.

“Sometimes when you come in as a new manager, you surprise people a little bit,” she said. “Next season, I won’t surprise anyone. Everyone will be ready to face Chelsea. I will have to think about what we can do to be an even better team, to make sure that we stay in this position, because this is what we want. It feels great to be number one.”

However, as the dust settles on yet another WSL season that Chelsea have won, the question becomes whether the post-mortems that get trotted out will actually make any difference.

Put bluntly, it feels like Chelsea are always ready to take the next step themselves, so even if their opponents do manage to move forward, they are chasing Chelsea’s coat tails.

The relentless attitude of Sonia Bompastor has been particularly noticeable. She has been the first to acknowledge that Chelsea’s performances as the season wore on were not quite as sparkling as the ones that blew teams away in the early months. She is laser-focused on the way she wants to team play. The phrases that pepper her press conferences are “game model”, “in possession approach”, “out of possession”.

“I am a manager who likes to work a lot in possession of the ball, and in one year, even if I have a clear idea of how I want to play with my team, I couldn’t work on everything,” she said.

“I spent more time on in possession than out of possession, so I’m hoping next year to be even better out of possession.”

In a world where women’s football is often forced to prove it deserves wider interest, the accusation leveled at Chelsea is that they make the league boring. They have the opportunity next weekend to take a clean sweep of domestic trophies if they can beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final.

Sometimes Chelsea’s success can be met more regularly with an eyeroll than a congratulations. The fact that not a single Chelsea player managed to make the top three in the voting for the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year despite being part of the most successful team in WSL history seems astonishing.

What is clear is that none of those players show any signs of getting bored of winning. When Erin Cuthbert grabbed the microphone on the pitch to sing “Country Roads” to the massed fans at Stamford Bridge – the song that has soundtracked Chelsea’s wins over the past couple of years – it was as if this was the first trophy she had won, not her 15th. That relentless winning mentality might be the hardest thing for their rivals to overcome.

Photograph by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images

When Shekiera Martinez arrived at West Ham in January, there was ­little fanfare. The German ­forward had signed a three-year deal in the ­summer, but went on loan to Freiburg for the first half of the ­season in order to secure a visa to play in England. Having never been capped for Germany at senior level, and never scored more than six goals in a ­single season, no one could predict what was about to be unleashed.

Martinez has had an astounding five months, scoring 10 goals in 12 games as part of a late, and in the end forlorn, charge for the Golden Boot. There was a brace against Chelsea to secure West Ham only their ­second point ever against the league ­winners, as well as a four-goal haul against Crystal Palace. She secured a ­nomination for WSL Player of the Season and Rising Star.

Martinez’s story has been thrilling but also reflective of a year in which the brightest stars have shone lower down the WSL table.

There has been 20-year-old Olivia Smith at Liverpool, terrorising opposition defences off the right wing with her speed and directness. Sara Holmgaard at Everton, meanwhile, has caused havoc swinging in crosses on top of her tough tackling at left back.

Their successes are reflective of the ever improving middle class in the league. The points gap this year between fifth and 11th is eight, a narrowing of the table. The previous four completed 12-team seasons saw gaps of 18, 19, 21, and 20.

Teams are continuing to spend more with every passing season and the quality of players sides are able to recruit is rising as a result. Smith, for example, joined Liverpool for a club record fee of £250,000 amid interest from Lyon and Chelsea.

Smaller teams have also gained greater focus as a result of a muted season from players on bigger teams. Millie Bright, Lucy Bronze and Erin Cuthbert were all key parts of Chelsea’s WSL winning squad but no Chelsea player has scored more than eight league goals, for example. Rotation has meant that only Hannah Hampton and Aggie Beever-Jones have featured in every game. Hampton became the first Chelsea player to play every minute of a league-winning 22 game season.

Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor spoke after her side won the title about feeling that not having a stand-out star meant her team got overlooked.

“It’s something that frustrates me a lot,” she said after her side won the league against Manchester United. “We are never talking about one ­individual, but more about the team. It’s great for me because I work a lot on making sure the team is more important than the individuals. But also people don’t realise the talent of the individual players. When you are able to achieve what this team achieved this season, you need to ­recognise the best players.”

It is not only a Chelsea thing. Bunny Shaw’s goalscoring prowess was brought to a sharp halt due to injury while Alessia Russo has put up a best ever season in all competitions but still been unable to overtake Shaw. Twelve goals is the lowest total for a Golden Boot winner since Eni Aluko scored nine in 2016. Since then, the winner has averaged a goal a game.

At Manchester United, it was a defensive bedrock that propelled their run to Champions League football and third place. Goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce and defender Maya Le Tissier played every minute of the ­season, and despite Tullis-Joyce’s error for Arsenal’s opener on the final day, allowed them to once again pip their city rivals to a European spot. It was a tough year for Manchester City, decimated as they were by injury, but Yui Hasegawa remains the most assured defensive ­midfielder in the league.

Yet no player impacted her team more this season than Mariona Caldentey at Arsenal. Having arrived from Barcelona in the summer, Mariona has played off the left, as a number ten and in the double pivot. The creative hub of her team, she has made almost 50 more progressive passes than anyone else in the league whilst making the second most tackles and interceptions. There was little doubt of the 29-year-old’s quality prior to the season, but the way she has immediately elevated Arsenal’s play has been a joy to see.