Bompastor anticipating a tough game when Chelsea travel to Liverpool | OneFootball

Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor says that Liverpool will be really ready to test her side when the two teams meet this weekend.

The Blues face The Reds in St Helens on Sunday afternoon. Liverpool won the same fixture 4-3 last season, putting Chelsea’s title hopes in a precarious position, although they did eventually end the campaign as champions.

When speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s clash, Bompastor said that Chelsea have respect for a Liverpool team that will be ready to compete against them.

“It’s a really exciting game and I know that Liverpool will find a way to perform against Chelsea, so we are prepared for that,” Bompastor said. “We never take any game for granted and that’s the same this weekend.

“Looking at Liverpool’s performances and results since the start of the season, I’m expecting to come up against a team that is really organised, that don’t concede a lot of goals and that are really ready to come up against us on Sunday. They’ll have a good team and a good squad.

“We will be focusing on ourselves with the quality of the talent in my squad.”

No less than 13 different players have scored for Chelsea in this season’s Barclays Women’s Super League and Bompastor sees that as a real positive.

She said “It’s really valuable for sure because it gives the opposition some doubts on players; they don’t really know which one is going to score. It also shows all of the quality that we have in our squad, especially when we’ve been playing without some of the most creative players in Catarina Macario and Lauren James.”

Chelsea have netted five goals in each of their last two Barclays Women’s Super League matches but Bompastor still sees areas for improvement.

She said “I’m a really demanding coach and there is always room for improvement in possession and out of possession.

“In build-up, we still need to be more efficient and I think we need to find more chemistry between the players in the creative phase and finishing phase. Even if we score a lot of goals, we could still be more efficient sometimes.

“Without possession of the ball, we must stay consistent throughout the game; being able to defend really well and have as many clean sheets as we can.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement, even though we are doing well and are confident at the moment.”

Chelsea’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Liverpool kicks-off at 12.30pm on Sunday afternoon.