“When we talk about ambition, we have to turn words into action,” said a frustrated Sonia Bompastor after Chelsea dropped their first points of the season to Leicester. “I need my players to be ready from the start of every game.”
The demands at the highest level are brutal, but Chelsea are never at the top either by luck or by chance. Bompastor willingly accepted the 'taskmaster' baton passed on by Emma Hayes, who left for the summer, and ran with it – impressively fast.
Under the Frenchman's reign, Chelsea stormed to a six-point lead at the top of the Women's Super League, stormed into the knockout stages of the Champions League with a 100 per cent record and averaged 2.8 goals per 90 in all competitions.
They were practically unstoppable. But the trip to the King Power offered a timely reminder that, despite the provocations, the WSL remains fiercely driven and no team is infallible.
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Highlights from the Women's Super League match between Leicester City and Chelsea
Bompastor lamented the lack of intensityintent and efficiency, as Chelsea were held to a 1-1 draw, despite 82 shots on target for Leicester and 28 shots on target. Expectation is victory, and anything less is ultimately disappointment.
Still, to get to the halfway point of the season with 15 wins and one draw from 16 games is pretty remarkable. And while, on paper, such a feat looks easy with the best assembled team (and biggest budget) in the WSL, things are rarely that simple.
Once impregnable dynasties may fall – take it The implosion of Manchester City under the great Pep Guardiola as evidence – but this empire, at least for the moment, is not one to break.
The ideas are fresh, with a new identity, as Bompastor tries to shape Chelsea into a team that wins with possession flair and style over sheer force. She wants the same winning machine that Hayes built, just with a bit of French refinement, or as she puts it, je ne sais quoi.
Speaking after Chelsea beat Celtic in November to secure European promotion with two games remaining, Bompastor said: “It's important to work hard to make things easy, even if they're not easy.”
Simplicity is hard to come by in football. Some teams have a habit of making results look effortless – Chelsea are in that category – but the process of achieving this is often harder than it seems. So what are Bompastor's real differences?
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Bompastor highlighted her aim to win all 22 WSL games this season before Chelsea were held by Leicester
“You never put your brain down. It's 24/7,” she said Sky Sports before beating title rivals Man City in November. And that obsession with what she calls the 'perfect game model' is what keeps pushing standards to different levels.
She arrived with a respect for Chelsea's pre-existing culture and trophy-laden history, but Hayes' brand of football has never been wedded to a ball-playing midfielder who prefers a high-tempo game that excites and excites. Bompastor has struck the perfect balance between consistency and change to ensure player confidence in its philosophy.
“She demands a lot from us,” forward Guro Reiten said recently. “There are things in training and the way she wants us to play that are a little different, but so far it's worked well. Whatever Sonia wants me to do, I'll do it.”
Without the luxury of injured pair Sam Kerr and Lauren James – Chelsea's most prolific duo in recent campaigns – Bompastor had to rely on Reiten to get things going. But here her eye for detail and softer style – Hayes was typically hard-headed – encouraged a wholesome, team-driven approach.
Kerr and James are different – Hayes loved it. They are unpredictable and individualistic. Now Chelsea has others who can carry that mantle, except it feels a little more put together. Thirty-one goals – at least 10 more than any other team – scored by 14 different players. No other team in the division even reached double figures for different goalscorers (Brighton are the closest with nine).
Reiten was a big user, tucked in to work more centrally, scoring six goals in 10 WSL starts. But she is not the only one. Johanna Rytting Kaneryd is having the season of her life, Mayra Ramirez has scored big goals in big games (against Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City), while youngster Aggie Beever-Jones has the second best minutes-to-goals ratio in the league.
Now for the refinement part. How does Bompastor take such a talented group and mold them into pass masters? Chelsea's distribution statistics are the least flattering dynamic of their game. They average fewer passes per 90 than Man City, Arsenal and Brighton, and their share of possession in all 10 WSL games (57 per cent) is much lower than Bompastor would like – and their passing accuracy.
Fourteen different players have scored for Chelsea in the WSL this season
Most great soccer dynasties have paired the will to win with the wow factor. Hayes' Chelsea used mentality as their superpower.
If Bompastor is able to incorporate her core tenets of dominating heavy possessions on her way to silverware this season, and her relentless pursuit of perfection may be closer than she thinks.