Manager caught in the first sticky patch of her career, but has agreed a new contract despite falling out of WSL title race
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ejected body language, talk of a crisis, and a 12-point gap ruling them out of the title before the second week of February. For a Chelsea team so used to winning the Women’s Super League, this is uncharted territory after their 5-1 loss to Manchester City.
For Sonia Bompastor, who has had more defeats in her past five league matches than in her previous 104 games in charge of Chelsea and Lyon, this is also an unfamiliar scenario, but Chelsea have placed their full faith in her – and vice versa – by agreeing a new, extended contract with the Frenchwoman and putting their trust in each other that recent results amount merely to a temporary blip, rather than a longer-term downward spiral.
The tone of the past few days’ reaction to the City defeat is a compliment to her track record – not least, winning a treble last term while remaining unbeaten domestically – and to the relentless domestic success Chelsea have enjoyed over the past decade that so much is being made of what essentially amounts to a very bad eight days. Chelsea have lost back-to-back WSL games for the first time since July 2015 but those defeats came against two of Europe’s best, Arsenal and Manchester City, so while the performances have fallen well below the standards expected, they have not suddenly become mediocre.
