It’s the 93rd minute. Chelsea are hanging on. Aston Villa are throwing everything at the Women’s Super League champions, and will just not go away. Sonia Bompastor watches on as the goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo is sent forward into the box, as Villa win another set-piece and get the chance to roll the dice for a final time. Nerves? Stress? Yes. For Bompastor, this was quite the introduction. Welcome to Chelsea, the champions of the past five seasons, but here clinging onto victory at Kingsmeadow. And here’s D’Angelo, rising to meet the cross, glancing a header towards goal.
But when Bompastor needed a hero, she found one in Hannah Hampton, goalkeeper denying goalkeeper in the dying seconds to earn Chelsea a narrow 1-0 win to kick off the new campaign. Emma Hayes set the highest of standards in her 11 years at the Blues yet Villa threatened to give the champions a dose of reality in Bompastor’s debut. Robert de Pauw’s side were excellent in long spells of his first game in charge and would have been deserving of an equaliser but Hampton found the crucial touch to tip D’Angelo’s header onto the crossbar.
A goalkeeper had never scored against one of Bompastor’s teams before and the former Champions League winner with Lyon, as both player and coach, was crossing her fingers at the end, praying D’Angelo would not be the first. “In my squad I know I have a lot of good players – Hannah is one of them,” Bompastor said. “It’s good to have this team spirit and resilience. When a team needs one goal and they give everything, it can be really difficult to handle. It was good for us to show that mentality because it is important.”
But how did Villa not get something? “We will ask ourselves that all season,” De Pauw reflected. Villa were ambitious under the Dutchman. The visitors offered plenty of threat and energy, from multiple angles, in an attacking line-up that was not compromised by facing the champions away from home. Rachel Daly was supported by Kenza Dali and Missy Bo Kearns, as well as through the adventurous runs of new signing Chasity Grant on the right. Grant’s willingness to get forward led to the best chance of the first half, as the Dutch winger fired a low ball across the face and it was somehow turned over from Kearns two yards out.
Villa’s approach led to an open game, as Chelsea racked up the chances. Guro Reiten twice dragged wide from just inside the box, and then set up two more opportunities with deliveries to the back post. First Sjoeke Nusken’s volley dropped just wide as the German looked to find Millie Bright; then Lucy Bronze , on her first Chelsea start since returning to the WSL, headed straight at D’Angelo. It almost felt inevitable that Chelsea would find the breakthrough at some stage, until Villa found a way to slow them down. It was turning into an awkward opening half for Bompastor, until Johanna Rytting Kaneryd produced something special in the 37th minute.
Bronze on her debut played a part, even if the England international didn’t touch the ball. The right back’s run to the outside of Rytting Kaneryd at least tricked the Villa defence into thinking there was another option. Instead, Rytting Kaneryd ignored it and, cutting onto her left foot, the Sweden international bent a stunning striker into the far corner from 20 yards. The Bompastor era was underway, and in some style, to further emphasise the quality the French coach has to select from in attacking positions: Rytting Kaneryd’s left foot kept Lauren James out of the starting line-up.
Chelsea have lost a core of the team who won so many titles under Hayes, with Jess Carter, Melanie Leupolz, Maren Mjlede all departing in the summer. But part of Chelsea’s transition came under Hayes last season, as Hannah Hampton, Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence, Nusken and then Mayra Ramirez settled in. Bompastor has since added Bronze from Barcelona and Sandy Baltimore from Paris Saint-Germain, meaning that of her first starting line-up it was only Bright, Reiten and Erin Cuthbert who you could term Hayes stalwarts.
Yet Villa remained a threat, which only brought out another Chelsea strength – that of their defensive resilience. It was put under examination. Daly hit the top of the crossbar with a looping header, Grant continued to roam down the right and find her way to the byline. If Villa’s most dangerous outlet looked to have been taken off in a double change on 67 minutes, De Pauw’s substitutions made an impact. Katie Robinson, another of their summer signings, was bright immediately and set up Paula Tomas, whose strong strike was blocked by Bright. Hampton, in trying to keep a pass-back in play and avoid a corner, then had to save from Adriana Leon.
Chelsea, by then, had rather lost control and were living dangerously though at least they had the defence comprising the collective experience of Bright, Bronze, Buchanan and Lawrence to fall back upon. And how Chelsea did, retreating further and further until there was just the substitute James to hit long to. Villa threw everything at Chelsea, and then everyone as D’Angelo advanced. But up stepped Hampton; a winning start to a new era, but only just.