Bompastor warns Chelsea Women: 'We must recover quickly and refocus'

Chelsea Women head coach Sonia Bompastor has warned her players, held to a goalless draw by Häcken in the Women's Champions League, to refocus quickly ahead of a crucial match against Manchester City.

As in their most recent Women's Super League match against Everton, the London side were unable to find the goal they were looking for against their Swedish opponents in the Women's Champions League, despite being hugely dominant on the pitch.

Chelsea sent no fewer than 32 shots towards the opposition goal in Tuesday's contest, yet hit the target with only six of those attempts in a match in which they generated a total of 2.16 expected goals (xG). Those 32 shots went down as the second-highest shot count by a side failing to score in a match in Women's Champions League history (behind Wolfsburg, who had 35 shots against Slavia Prague in December 2022).

The Blues had 66 touches in the opposition penalty area, while hosts Häcken had just eight touches in the opposition box. Even so, the London side could have left the pitch beaten had it not been for a crucial save by goalkeeper Livia Peng in the closing moments of the match.

A stern test awaits Chelsea, who face reigning champions and current leaders Manchester City on Saturday; a possible defeat would stretch the points gap to five.

Speaking after the match, Bompastor said:

"Defensively, our performance tonight was good. We knew what the opposition wanted to do against us; they wanted to get in behind our defence on the transition, and our defenders controlled those situations very well. We dominated possession for most of the match and had plenty of chances, but tonight we could not score the goal that would have won the game. It is a frustrating result. We came here wanting to win. One of our efforts came back off the post and the opposition goalkeeper made some great saves. These things happen in football sometimes; what matters is to learn from it and look ahead. We have the quality in the team to do that, but tonight things did not go the way we wanted. We have a very big match waiting for us at the weekend, so we must recover quickly and refocus."

Only three of Chelsea's last 185 matches in all competitions have ended goalless. Strikingly, two of those (against Häcken and Lyon) have come in the last eight matches. The other goalless draw also came against Häcken, in the Women's Champions League in December 2023.