Sonia Bompastor: A new era at Chelsea, and a new WSL champion?

The 2024-25 Women’s Super League will have fans excited at the prospect of new managers right across the league.

Four of the 12 clubs involved will have new bosses in the dugout when the campaign begins in mid-September.

The most hotly anticipated of those newcomers is Sonia Bompastor, who will be following on from the Emma Hayes dynasty and trying to create her own era of success at Chelsea.

In the last decade, Chelsea found the winning formula that brought silverware galore. Hayes won 15 trophies during her 12 years as manager, cementing the club’s complete dominance of the domestic competitions in England.

That haul included a last-gasp push for the WSL title last season, as the Blues pipped Manchester City to the post.

Opta’s supercomputer is backing Chelsea for the title, but Bompastor certainly has big shoes to fill.

See you on Saturday for Sonia’s first game at Kingsmeadow, Blues!

— Chelsea FC Women (@ChelseaFCW) September 4, 2024

The recipe to success

The success that Bompastor must try and replicate will be no mean feat for the new Blues boss. However, she has won one trophy as a player and a manager that Chelsea were never able to under Hayes: the Champions League.

The former France international is also no stranger to pressure and expectations having played in and managed arguably the most successful women’s team of all time in the Champions League.

She captained Lyon to victory in 2011 and 2012 and went one better in 2016 to become the first person to win the famous competition as both a player and a manager.

Bompastor’s list of honours is significant as a player. She won eight Division 1 Feminine league titles, six with Lyon and two with Montpellier, she won the Coupe de France four times, and the Champions League twice.

As a manager, she won three league titles and one French Cup in her time as coach of Lyon. She has the mindset of a serial winner and, after Hayes, Chelsea could hope for nothing less in a new boss.

Bompastor won exactly 100 of her 118 games in charge of Lyon, registering an 84.75% win percentage and losing only eight times.

Her Lyon team scored 381 goals, an average of 3.81 per match, while conceding only 71 in return (0.71 per game). Bompastor’s numbers truly speak for themselves and are the reason Chelsea made her the number one candidate to replace Hayes and lead what they hope will be a new era of success.

A new champion?

The WSL is notoriously a difficult hunting ground for new managers. No manager in the competition’s history has ever won the WSL in their first season in charge. There have also only ever been five winners of the competition.

Bompastor’s predecessor Hayes won seven, Laura Harvey and Matt Beard have two titles each, while Nick Cushing and Joe Montemurro lifted the trophy once apiece.

It means we have an interesting quirk in the new season, with Liverpool boss Beard being the only active manager to have won the WSL title among all the current bosses.

But Bompastor will still face stiff competition, as her main rivals in Jonas Eidevall, Marc Skinner and Gareth Taylor have all taken Hayes to the wire in recent seasons as the league continues its explosion of expansion, growth and increased competitiveness.

Bompastor came so close to securing a second Champions League medal last time out with her Lyon side ultimately falling just short when they faced a formidable Barcelona team who made their own piece of history by securing a quadruple, becoming the first team to do this since Arsenal in 2007.

Her ability to navigate and win at all costs could bring a new chapter of success for Chelsea.

Bompastor’s Blues…champions breed champions

The new Chelsea boss has been left with solid foundations as she aims to win the WSL at the first time of asking. Bompastor is taking over a team that scored 71 goals in the WSL last term, 10 more than any other team, while only Man City (15) conceded fewer goals than the Blues (18).

Chelsea accumulated 59.87 xG, the most in the league, over four more than next-best Arsenal (55.48).

In fact, Chelsea had the best shot-conversion rate in the WSL last season, despite losing leading scorer and 2023 player of the year Sam Kerr to an ACL injury at their winter training camp in January.

Before her injury last season, Kerr was averaging 0.61 goals per 90 minutes, from 3.66 shots per 90, with a 16.67% conversion rate.

But Kerr’s goals per 90 was actually at its lowest since the 2019-20 season, while her xG per 90 (0.46) was at its lowest during her time at Chelsea altogether.

Getting Kerr fit and firing will be Bombastor’s task – the Australian is still a world-class operator on her day, as she showed by hitting double figures in each of the three seasons prior to last season. Kerr has committed her future to the club, signing a new contract till 2026.

Chelsea had 429 shots in the WSL, the second-highest total after Arsenal (436). They averaged 0.13 xG per shot, a higher total than any team in the division. Lauren James was the joint second-highest scorer in the WSL last season, with 13 goals. The England international greatly outperformed her 6.1 xG, showing high-level finishing and demonstrating clear improvement in that area of her game.

Mayra Ramirez had a fine Olympics with Colombia, and starred in Chelsea’s huge win over Manchester United on the final day of last season. She scored three goals in seven WSL games last term following her record-breaking switch from Spain.

The impact Ramirez could be huge in her first full season with the club. Her speed, strength and deadly finishing could prove too much for defences across the WSL.

Bompastor has also added more quality to the attack by bringing in Sandy Baltimore on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain. The France international is another proven winner, is a creative force and loves to drive at defences. She made 21 successful dribbles and had 24 touches in the opposition box in the Champions League last season.

Defensively, the Blues were solid last term, with their 18 goals conceded coming from an expected goal against of 20.36, though they faced more shots than both Man City (184) and Arsenal (176). Millie Bright was missing for most of the season, however, and she really could be like a new signing this term.

Bompastor has looked to the market to help Chelsea reach that next level. Lucy Bronze, who has won every domestic trophy there is to win in France, Spain and in England, has joined after leaving Barcelona. Bronze has won the Champions League five times, lifting the trophy in spells with both Lyon and Barca.

Bronze created 28 chances for Barcelona last season from full-back – the second-most of any defender for the European champions, after Ona Batlle. Bronze supplied four assists and her experience in both attack and defence could be one of the missing links for European success.

The best of the rest

But what constitutes success for the new manager? And how big is the expectation from the club and fans alike to see their recent glory days replicated? With Man City and Arsenal both adding significant summer signings to their squads, this may be the hardest and fiercest title race we have ever seen in the WSL.

City ran the Blues so close, with Hayes’ team winning it on goal difference on the final day. Taylor has not left anything to chance, with City signing the all-time leading goalscorer in the WSL Vivianne Miedema, who left Arsenal in the summer.

It is not just goals Miedema brings – she is also a creative force, having laid on 35 assists in the WSL, which ranks behind only Beth Mead (45) and Katie McCabe (36).

With Golden Boot winner Khadija Shaw, as well as Lauren Hemp, Chloe Kelly and Mary Fowler in their ranks, there seems to be little danger of City losing a title on goal difference again with such a stacked attacking line.

Arsenal stayed in the race for as long as they could but their attack ultimately let them down. While they have let arguably one of the best players of all time leave their ranks, they have brought in some big names themselves in the hope they can challenge their London rivals once more.

Quality signings have come in at both ends of the pitch. Mariona Caldentey (signed from Barcelona), Daphne van Domselaar (signed from Aston Villa) and Rosa Kafaji (signed from BK Hacken), who is a youngster regularly tipped as the next big superstar of the women’s game, have all arrived.

But only time will tell if one of these sides can beat Bompastor’s side to glory and success.

We could be about to witness the new era of a new champion, especially if she can clinch that elusive Champions League title that Chelsea have so longed for.