Chelsea praised for "outstanding" performance against West Ham after "difficult day" | OneFootball

Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes praised her players for an “outstanding” performance against West Ham after a “difficult day”.

The Blues were rocked yesterday after the UK Government decided to freeze the assets of club owner Roman Abramovich. This came in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

Abramovich is now unable to sell Chelsea, with the club placed under special financial measures preventing them from selling tickets or merchandise, buying or selling players, or offering new contracts.

This is also expected to impact the women’s team, with Hayes speaking on the matter before her side’s 4-1 victory against West Ham.

“There’s no denying it’s a difficult day,” she said on Sky Sports. “It’s important we give it time, the club’s put a statement out and I understand the club’s working with the government to dissect the interpretation of that.

“For all the questions everyone has, players, fans, staff, we have to give the club time to work through that.

“From my end, I’m a leader of this team and we’re going to have to navigate a difficult period and one where I don’t have all the answers for it.

“I have an amazing dressing room, amazing fans and amazing employees at the club that deserve the very best for us.”

If Chelsea’s female players were impacted by the day’s events, they showed no sign of it during last night’s match.

The Blues pulled ahead during an 11-minute flurry of goals in the first half, with Pernille Harder scoring twice and Niamh Charles also getting on the scoresheet.

Dagný Brynjarsdóttir pulled one back for West Ham just minutes into the second half, but Sam Kerr soon restored Chelsea’s three goal advantage.

Hayes praised her team and claimed the match gave the players the opportunity to “just focus on what’s happening on the pitch”.

“It was lovely to think about football and patterns and movements. I thought we were outstanding in the first half, the way we moved the ball, the way we solved problems together,” she said.

“I thought we were thoroughly deserving of our lead at half-time. Second half, maybe there was a 15 minute period where I thought we were sloppy, and got a bit too transitional. We did what we had to to see the game out.”

Hayes added: “We love winning games of football, and, no disrespect, we don’t want to be sitting here talking about other things. We want to talk about how we score goals or how we keep it out of the back of the net.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of focus on things other than football. It was just lovely to get the opportunity to just focus on what’s happening on the pitch.”

Chelsea are now five points off Women’s Super League leaders Arsenal, but with two matches in hand.