Chelsea won the sixth consecutive title of the female super league to prove domestic domination did not end with Emma Hayes | Football news

They say good things come to those waiting.

Patience and perseverance are two principles that the values ​​of Sonia Bompastor after taking the time to learn the art of training in the academic system of Lyon before going to the first team, and finally accept a carefully selected opportunity to manage in the female super league.

But none was necessary during its first year in charge of Chelsea. This season has been an exhibition of title inevitability of the reigning champions. A reminder to all those who suggested that their crown could slide after the end of the Emma Hayes era that the established hierarchy is no less motionless.

It’s again. The Blues have another collector’s object for the trophy firm. The only difference is this year that they won with matches to lose. No final filled with danger for Bompastor – she finished work earlier than even the Great Hayes could not in her last three winning campaigns.

Very little of this season has been NIP and Tuck. In this way, it was different, perhaps even surprising. It was as if Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City had hit the door for so long that he had started to open, only for Bompastor to slam him mercilessly. The panel reading “closed for business”.

Previous years have certainly delivered the idea that Chelsea could have been dethroned for much longer. Hayes herself conceded the title after losing against Liverpool at the end of her last season: “This is not the case. I don’t think the title is there,” she said, before eclipser Man City on the difference in goals. It was mean but it is the name of the game.

Chelsea does not care who they trample on their way to silverware as long as they get there. Such an insatiable hunger is difficult to find – and even less to maintain so long. Pure desire without trailer is a constant, reinvented over the years but still present. It is the hand that feeds this machine winning again and again.

And yet, no one predicted that such an inflexible approach would be transferred to Chelsea de Bompastor so quickly. How could they? People talked about a transition period. A kind of recreation. A time between the two where the Frenchwoman, having never been trained abroad before, gets used to her environment and that the team she inherited makes her new leader known.

Bompastor broke this claim.

It is simply relentless Chelsea 2.0, more patient in possession, but always able to impose themselves in the same exhaustive way as each team of Hayes has done. A unit in which each party acts precisely its part, all aligned on the same attitude “victory at all costs”.

But that, their six peat, is as impressive as it is problematic for the WSL and its attempt to remain competitive. How do rivals become the challengers again? Arsenal fell to the last obstacle in 2021-2022. Man United suffered the same fate the following year and Man City more recently. The cycle of domestic domination – Europe remains frustrating out of reach – is so unwavering that it challenges belief.

In a strange way, that very few Chelsea players were full statistical leaders this season. No better class artist among the biggest spectacle in the city – how can it be? It seems particular that from back to front, most of the most efficient individuals in WSL play for other clubs.

There are a few aberrant values, but this last title was not on exceptional solo acts-as when the unparalleled French managed the show in 2020-21 or when Sam Kerr won 20 goals on the way to the Golden Boot in 2021-2022. Or when the quality of Lauren James’s Maverick led the conquest of last year.

The story of this season has been much more nuanced. Finding the exceptional in the exception is something that only Chelsea is capable of.

Defensively, Lucy Bronze is the only player to appear in good place in one of the categories used to measure defensive solidity. She ranks second for interceptions behind Ash Neville from Tottenham. No Chelsea player is listed in the top five for plated, clearances, goods won or blocked shots.

Hannah Hampton’s white sheet record (11) is impressive but not as big as Phallon Tullis -Joyce by Man United (13) – by far the most efficient goalkeeper in the League this season. Tullis-Joyce is at the top of the graphic for the number of goals also that (6.9).

Offensively, the main markers of Chelsea Aggie Beever-Jones and Guro Reiten have eight goals each, ranking them fifth behind Shekiera Martinez (West Ham), Elisabeth Terland (Man UTD), Alessia Russo (Arsenal) and Khadija Shaw (Man City). Beever -Jones is also placed for the target shots (17) – which is the same number as Vivianne Miedema of Man City published after half of the season with an injury.

Johanna Rytting Kanerryd place fifth for the chances created (33) but is kilometers from Katie McCabe d’Arsenal (45) and Marie Hobinger de Liverpool (38). The Chelsea winger hit the ball in the opposition box 116 times, with the teammate Mayra Ramirez near behind (114), but it is Russo (133) who is at the top, while all the temporary measures are dominated by the players of Man City and Arsenal.

These figures will be relatively without consequence when they wear a WSL Ginners medal, except to highlight an obvious theme. With the superstar striker, Kerr spending all season away with an LCA injury and James managing only six Chelsea league departures had to be collected collectively. Engage a pack mentality. And that does not mean winning a title playing anti-foteball, because certain performance and results have delighted.

But their power was most strongly felt in the strength of the team, like the team with the best basin of cumulative talents through the painting – depth beyond the wildest imagination of the other WSL teams. Substitutes for their substitutes. Solutions for each problem.

Talk to Sky Sports At the end of March, after Rugi to defeat Man City of two goals in the Champions League, Bompastor said: “I told my players that you would have different statuses.

“Sometimes you will start the game. Sometimes you will not be in the team. Sometimes you will be a finisher. And whatever the status you have, you are here to help the team. This is the club, the team and what we are doing together.”

Very few WSL managers have a fraction of this luxury or increase to use every centimeter. Bompastor, who described this title as “unexpected”, tightened and shaped his team, producing with each imperfection and asked more. At the national level, they barely tightened. The treble is very lit.

And so here, we have the largest female football team in this country, already in the field of practically untouchable, with the potential and the means of becoming even more important.

* Correct data on April 29 (does not include statistics of the games played on April 30)