‘He’s done an amazing job’ – Chelsea boss Hayes full of praise for Harder’s job at West Ham | OneFootball

Chelsea manager Emma Hayes has heaped praise on West Ham United boss Olli Harder for the job which he has done with the club in his first year in England.

The New Zealander was appointed West Ham United manager in December 2020 and spent the remainder of the 2020/2021 campaign battling to keep the club in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League. Harder has steered The Hammers out of trouble and they have spent this season looking up at a potential top half of the table finish.

Harder’s next challenge comes on Wednesday evening when West Ham United travel to Chelsea. When speaking ahead of that match in the pre-match press conference, Blues boss Hayes was full of praise for her opposite number.

“I had a great chat with Olli last week, what a great guy,” Hayes said. “Talk about making the most out of what he’s got with his resources.

“I thought for 45 minutes last week, you couldn’t separate the two teams, there wasn’t anything between us. The quality and class in the second half showed with the goals but I saw the game against Everton, he was missing two key players at the Asian Cup, he has already got an outstanding group. They’ve got everything to compete and if he keeps adding bits of quality, I’m sure the club will jump into that next category.”

Looking back on last week’s 4-2 FA Women’s Continental League Cup quarter-final victory at West Ham United, Hayes said that her side needed time to get back into competitive football after more than a month without a game.

She said “We needed 45 minutes, we were rusty. I had a chance to see a lot of players who hadn’t had a lot of minutes so it’s nice to keep developing others and finding different performances and different positions for some of our players.”

Chelsea will walk out at Kingsmeadow for the first time since 8 December when they face The Hammers and Hayes admitted that it is a lovely feeling to be returning home.

“We are at home, I’m happy to be at home,” Hayes said. “I know that they are a difficult opponent, I know that they are extremely dangerous in transition, they’re good from set pieces, they’re good from wide areas, I know all of those things. They are quite relentless to the end, I know that but we are at home in-front of our fans and I can’t wait to see them because it feels like an eternity since we’ve had any kind of consistency of that process.”

The Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture between Chelsea and West Ham United kicks-off at 7pm on Wednesday evening. Tickets are available and can be purchased by clicking here.