Bompastor blames injuries for Chelsea drop-off

Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor says injuries are to blame for her side’s decline this season.

Back-to-back defeats by Arsenal and Manchester City have left the defending champions, who have won the Women’s Super League for the past six seasons, 12 points behind the leaders with eight games left.

After 5-1 loss to City, Bompastor made comments that some interpreted as blaming a lack of squad depth for their troubles, but the French manager insisted that was not what she meant and that she was making a point about how injuries had affected their season.

“I tried to say the squad depth has been affected by key players missing in key positions – that’s probably the main reason we are in this situation,” she said.

“English is not my first language and maybe because of the language barrier, I didn’t express that clearly.”

After the City game Bompastor also said she would be “happy” to leave Chelsea if the club hierarchy felt she was no longer the right person for the job.

However, speaking before Sunday’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur, she insisted she retained the club’s backing.

According to Opta, Chelsea have underperformed their expected goals by more than any other team in the WSL this season (24 scored from 29 expected) and managed just two shots on target across the games against Arsenal and City.

Colombia striker Mayra Ramirez has yet to feature in 2025-26 after being injured in a pre-season friendly against AC Milan, while Sam Kerr has mainly been restricted to substitute appearances in her comeback from almost two years out of action.

In the summer, America forward Alyssa Thompson arrived for a fee in the region of £1m and is Chelsea’s top scorer with five goals from 12 WSL appearances.

However, she was the only attacking reinforcement in that window – and the Blues did not make any signings in January either.

Chelsea are through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, are in the FA Cup fifth round and will play Manchester United in the League Cup final next month.

“I’m happy with the players we have available – we still have a lot of quality – but it doesn’t help when we are competing in four competitions,” Bompastor added.

“Sunday is really important. We are not used to losing two games in a row and all the noise around Chelsea is crazy.