Chelsea Women don’t just need a striker. They need to resurrect their winning culture

Shaw’s performance, amid reports of an impending departure from City and of Chelsea interest in signing her, will dominate headlines. It showed why she is the WSL’s best striker, and why her signature is coveted by Chelsea, among many others.

How Chelsea let another trophy opportunity slip away also showed that their chances of taking back the domestic crown from City next year hinge on much more than Shaw’s potential signature.

They need to rediscover their identity.

“(It’s) not good enough when you concede two goals in the last 10 minutes of the game. It summarises probably also our season,” Bompastor told the game’s UK broadcaster TNT Sports. “I think mentally we were not strong enough in some games — same today. That’s tough to take.”

This is the first time since August 2013 that Chelsea’s women have lost a game they led by two or more goals in any competition. Describing how Chelsea look after conceding, Cuthbert used an adjective that will seldom have entered her vocabulary in 300 appearances for the west London club: “vulnerable”.

For Chelsea to be accused of lacking a winning mentality, or wilting under pressure, would have felt unthinkable at the start of the season. As Bompastor was keen to point out after yesterday’s game, her team did perform well for 85 minutes — but as they collapsed late on, the cracks in that previously unshakeable mentality were visible.

Late in extra time, as City’s Iman Beney received treatment on the pitch, Chelsea’s players were scattered around the pitch in dribs and drabs while the opposition gathered in a tight huddle in their penalty area.

“Football is full of emotions,” Cuthbert told reporters when asked why Chelsea have struggled with their management of matches at times. “Everybody has different emotions in the game. Some people are having a good game, some people are not involved in the game, some people are maybe not having a good game. We all feel different emotions and we’re all playing a different game and scenario, so maybe getting us all back on the same page is really, really important.”

There are a few explanations for Chelsea not being quite in sync. Injuries have meant that few of these players have enjoyed a full, fit season together, with Aggie Beever-Jones and Niamh Charles among those who have had stop-start campaigns. There is also a sense that this is a squad in transition: Millie Bright watched from the stands after announcing her retirement in April, while Kerr is expected to leave the club in the summer.

The leadership of senior figures such as Cuthbert will be vital in providing some continuity and leading by example in terms of mentality.

“When you are in Chelsea, the pressure is high. Probably the highest. Even myself, I have lived it,” Bompastor said after the match. “We need to make sure, again, we probably reflect on how we can support and help the players to hold that pressure. But also, how we can make sure we bring players who are also strong in mental aspects.”

Bompastor and her team also need to be on the same page.

“You need to understand at this level, when you are playing a game like that, when you are playing the last 10 minutes, you need to be smart,” Bompastor said. “Reading the game — making sure you understand where are the spaces, what is the other team doing, pressing you, not pressing you — and to be able to adapt and to play the game you need to play.”

She also clearly did not feel her substitutes performed as expected yesterday.

“I always reflect on the game before the game. Asking myself, ‘OK, what team do I want to start the game with? And what different plans can I have when I bring players in?’. Depending on the scenario, on results, depending on how we are performing on the pitch, all these things. So we have different plans,” Bomapstor said when asked about the rationale behind some of her five changes. “I think today, you can say the substitutions didn’t help us. And that’s tough, but that’s the reality of the game.”

Lucy Bronze was introduced for Veerle Buurman in the 70th minute, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd came on for Thompson in the 78th and Wieke Kaptein for Kadeisha Buchanan during extra time. The biggest call, though, was to take off Kerr and Lauren James, who had been performing well, in stoppage time, just after Shaw’s equaliser, and send on Sandy Baltimore and Beever-Jones.

“We made the decision a little bit before we conceded the second goal,” Bompastor said. “I was still sticking with it because always when I’m bringing players in, I expect them to be ready to perform at the mental level, at the physical level, understanding and reading the game plan and being able to deliver.

“When you bring players in, they should have a positive impact for the team.”

Bompastor seemed disappointed that her subs did not affect the match as City’s did — as well as Fowler’s goal off the bench, Beney recorded two assists — but removing the attacking threat posed by Kerr and James, who recorded the most shots among Chelsea players, was a strange decision.

Chelsea need to address their game management in terms of both mentality and tactics. They need to work out how to resurrect their winning culture, especially when some of those players who helped build it are moving on. They need to solve the apparent disconnect that pops up between their manager’s instructions and what is happening on the pitch.

They also need a striker, but reclaiming their place at the top will take far more than that.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Chelsea, Women's Soccer

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