Bompastor secures Chelsea's first Emirates win but questions remain on long-term plan

Sonia Bompastor's side held on to claim a historic yet unconvincing 2-1 victory at Arsenal

Mayra Ramirez celebrates her goal against Arsenal at the Emirates. Credit: Chelsea

Sometimes a result matters more than a performance. Chelsea finally got a win at the Emirates, beating Arsenal 2-1 yesterday and extending Sonia Bompastor’s 100% start as head coach.

It is the kind of outcome that will automatically endear Bomapstor to the fans. As her predecessor Emma Hayes watched on from the director’s box, she achieved something that Hayes had been unable to. 

When Chelsea went 2-0 up within 16 minutes, it looked like it could be a battering but they struggled to have any control of the game. Caitlin Foord pulled a goal back for Arsenal before half-time and it meant that Chelsea spent the second half clinging on. For Arsenal, it was a case of ‘when it rains, it pours’ as they lost despite playing fairly creditably. 

It is hard to know how good we should expect Chelsea to look. They are yet to give an impressive performance under Bompastor but they are muddling through at the moment. That is despite issues with injuries and illness.

Manchester City’s impeccable mid-week display against Barcelona probably elevated them to title favourites in the minds of many, but it feels unfair to directly compare Chelsea to City right now. Gareth Taylor has been at City for three and a half seasons already and this specific iteration of his side have been improving over the past two campaigns. 

Even if that is a high bar to hold Chelsea to, it is clear that there is a lot of work to be done. They struggled to sustain consistent periods of possession in this match and looked mainly to get in behind Arsenal’s defence through long balls.

They had four passes into the penalty area all match. The only matches last season where they had less than that were in the two UWCL semi-finals against Barcelona. Their 14 passes into the final third was significantly lower than in any game last season.

Chelsea lined up with the same structure that they had for their 3-2 win over Real Madrid on Tuesday. The one change saw Kadeisha Buchanan replace Nathalie Björn in defence - Buchanan had been suspended for the Champions League match. Sandy Baltimore has been preferred to Ashley Lawrence at left back, and early experiments with Guro Reiten as the 10 appear to be over. 

In Sjoeke Nüsken and Wieke Kaptein, they have a very young midfield. It was striking to compare the average ages of each team’s double pivot in the game. Chelsea’s was 21 whilst Arsenal’s was 32.5. Kaptein in particular struggled with both her positioning and passing. Their pass completion percentages stood at 74.1% for Nüsken and 69.2% for Kaptein. Contrast that with 90.6% for Little and 80.5% for Walti.

However, this was not entirely the duo’s fault with the confused positioning of players ahead of them. Mayra Ramirez, who caused Arsenal’s defence a host of problems with her direct running, has been drifting out wide to get on the ball when Chelsea are in possession. She has been occupying spaces nominally taken up by Chelsea’s other attackers including Reiten and James. But when Ramirez is moving, her team mates seem unsure what position they should be taking up

At points in the match, you could see the duo talking together in frustration as they tried to point where they thought the other should be. James showed the quality that justifies giving her a free role in her assist for Chelsea’s second goal but Reiten and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd need to react better to the movement of Ramirez and James.

It did not help that Chelsea’s long-passing, that they increasingly fell back on in the face of their limited structure, was particularly poor. They completed just 42.6% of their long passes, far less than their 65.6% average they have had over the rest of the season. Bompastor has spoken about wanting Chelsea to become a more possession-based team but it seemed they reverted to a hit and hope approach to try and deal with Arsenal’s pressure.

It has been a topsy turvy beginning to the season for Chelsea who had their start disrupted with their match against Manchester United being postponed. They have a run of fixtures now which should help them find some rhythm as they face FC Twente and Tottenham before the international break, followed by Everton and Liverpool after it. These will be crucial games for Bompsator to show that their structure has improved, and that she can give them the possession-style she claims she can. Already this season, Chelsea have had less than 50% possession in two games. That only happened five times in entirety of last year.