The Sonia Bompastor era has lift off. On Friday night, Chelsea kickstarted the new Women’s Super League season with their first game in the competition in over 12 years without Emma Hayes – but despite her absence, the winning ways continued in a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa.
It wasn’t a classic. The early moments, which saw Guro Reiten flash two efforts wide of the far post, suggested it could be one-way traffic. However, it ended up being anything but as Villa grew into the game and showed glimpses of what their own new head coach, Robert de Pauw, has spent the summer implementing.
Still, it was a game that showed rust, one in which players just weren’t quite on the same page or hadn’t found their shooting boots yet, given it was the opening day of the season. That was until a flurry of fireworks behind the main stand at Kingsmeadow provided a spark that the match had been missing through its first half an hour. Moments later, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd unleashed a rocket of her own, firing in a stunning solo goal.
It was a rare moment of quality in an otherwise scrappy match, one in which Chelsea were hanging on in the final stages. That ability to stay in the contest will certainly have pleased Villa and De Pauw and Rachel Daly must have thought she’d got an equaliser at the death, only for England goalkeeper Hannah Hampton to produce an outstanding save to deny her. Moments later, she was called into action again, this time thwarting opposing shot-stopper Sabrina D’Angelo with a stop that ensured Bompastor’s story at the club started with a victory.
GOAL rates Chelsea’s players from Kingsmeadow…