Sonia Bompastor’s new deal can’t disguise issues plaguing Chelsea

It comes for everyone eventually. The Chelsea of it all. A sinking feeling that it does not matter what has gone on in the past or what might come in the future, the right now is in free fall and your head is on the block.

Less than eight months ago, Sonia Bompastor was on top of the world. Her first season in charge of Chelsea had delivered an unprecedented domestic treble, with an invincible league campaign to boot. A disappointing Champions League exit to Barcelona at the semi-final stage took some of the gloss off the year but there was a willingness to accept that Bompastor’s Chelsea side were still a work in progress.

It was hard to imagine, as Bompastor lifted the FA Cup trophy at Wembley to complete her treble, that so little time would have passed before she was being asked how confident she was that she would be in charge of the next game.

“If people in the club think I’m not the right person to stay in this job, I’ll be happy to go,” she said, speaking after her Chelsea side had been demolished 5-1 at Manchester City last Sunday. “But I will never give up.”

Confirmation that people in the club did think she was right for the job came on Friday. In the middle of a furore about the direction her team are taking, Bompastor signed a two-year extension of a contract that already ran until 2028. That came after she had lost back-to-back games for the first time in her career, 2-0 against Arsenal at Stamford Bridge, followed by the result at Manchester City. It is reported that the deal had been agreed prior to those matches.

The title looked like it had slipped from Chelsea’s grasp after the Arsenal result, with the gap to City stretching to nine points. Bompastor committed the cardinal sin of appearing to admit that winning the league was beyond them. Chelsea have won six successive Women’s Super League titles, and no matter how much anyone knows that run will end, the reality is painful.

To have such a pitiful reaction when they visited the Etihad inevitably raised questions about the relationship between the players and the manager. Against Arsenal and City, Chelsea were lacklustre in their press and their duels. Following the Arsenal result, Bompastor implied that they had wanted to be more aggressive in their press. It is unclear why that was then so obviously not the case.

Fingers can point in plenty of directions. Bompastor herself after the City game said she would have “liked to be in a better place in terms of the last transfer windows”. Last year Chelsea brought in winger Alyssa Thompson for a fee of about £1.1m. In January 2025, they had added Naomi Girma for £900,000 and Keira Walsh for £460,000. Bompastor has been financially backed.

But Chelsea have lacked firepower up top with Mayra Ramírez a long-term absentee, Sam Kerr nowhere near her former self and Aggie Beever-Jones waxing and waning in the way that young players can. Equally, the frequent injuries of Lauren James have left Chelsea without an established No 10. It is easy to cast Bompastor’s comments as those of a drowning manager, but there are certainly areas on the pitch that Chelsea could strengthen further.

The steep decline in form of club captain Millie Bright, in combination with a number of her ill-judged comments, has not helped. Bright has struggled this season, with Bompastor’s tendency to play a back three feeling like an attempt to include her in the side while disguising her decline. Meanwhile, Bright’s podcast with Aston Villa striker Rachel Daly has meant a constant running commentary on Chelsea’s issues which rarely contains the kind of serious reflection that might be hoped for.

Her refusal to defend Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton in the face of criticism from Mary Earps rankled with fans, as did her glowing greeting of Arsenal scorer Beth Mead on the pitch after the loss a fortnight ago.

These are new waters for Chelsea to navigate. For years, Emma Hayes was untouchable. She had built Chelsea and it was hard to imagine any set of results that would have led to her being shown the door. It helped that after Chelsea won their first major honour in 2015, there were only two seasons in Hayes’ ­tenure that she did not win silverware. But Bompastor does not have the ­luxury that Hayes did of representing the whole club. She might not be as good a manager as Hayes either but her standing makes her position far more precarious.

Bompastor, of course, can still win plenty of silverware. Chelsea are in the FA Cup and the Champions League quarter-finals, and play Manchester United in the League Cup final next month. Yet it feels like, if she is to continue in the role, this must be Champions League or bust. The fact that Chelsea do not have to try to chase down City, being so far behind, may be a good thing. But the concern from the body language of the players on the pitch will be that the dressing room is already too downbeat to mount a serious challenge.

Eagle-eyed social media users were quick to point out that the only player to like Chelsea’s Instagram announcement of Bompastor’s contract extension was 17-year-old academy player Chloe Sarwie.

The parallels with Arne Slot and his Liverpool team are obvious. An adored long-term manager leaves a club with their successor finding immediate glory, only to stutter in a second season as they try to modulate the team into their own direction. United and Arsenal have filled column inches for years on how hard it is to move on from an era-defining coach. Chelsea appear to be finding that now themselves, with the added toxicity of a fanbase who are used to the hire-and-fire approach which has characterised the men’s side.

Chelsea head to Tottenham in what has become an unlikely battle for the Champions League places. Bompastor’s side are a point ahead of them and it is undoubtedly a must-win game. The contract extension shows that Chelsea believe the team are moving in the right direction under Bompastor. But if history is anything to go by, managerial contracts are not a concern the club have ever taken too seriously.

Photograph by Naomi Baker/WSL Football/Getty