‘She’s the best striker in the world’ – Chelsea boss Hayes pays tribute to forward Kerr | OneFootball

Chelsea manager Emma Hayes says that Sam Kerr is the best striker in world football after the Australian international helped The Blues win the Vitality Women’s FA Cup final this afternoon.

The South West Londoners defeated Arsenal 3-0 at Wembley with Kerr scoring a brace. Fran Kirby was also on target for The Blues at the national stadium.

When speaking in the post-match press conference, Hayes paid tribute to Kerr following her Wembley double.

“I think Sam Kerr, so many wondered how she would cope in the English game, as far as I am concerned, she is the best striker in the world,” Hayes said. “She displayed that today when it really mattered.

“She’s courageous, she’s full of confidence, she can do that off the back of getting off a plane from Sydney, Australia on Thursday. She is a superb athlete, an amazing human, she is one of many characters in the dressing room who is noteworthy of her performance today.”

While Kerr grabbed the headlines with her double, Hayes also raved about the performance of the other goalscorer Kirby.

She said “I thought that was Fran’s best game in a Chelsea shirt, I thought she ran the show. She got on the ball in dangerous situations, she thread Sam (Kerr) in on numerous occasions but also, she was a real threat, a real handful in the game.”

Chelsea won the FA Women’s Community Shield, Barclays FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Continental League Cup and the Vitality Women’s FA Cup in 2020/2021 and Hayes was keen to remind everyone of the club’s famous quadruple.

“As far as we are concerned, that’s four domestic trophies, a quadruple of domestic trophies,” she said. “That is an amazing achievement at any level of modern day football.

“When it comes to the performance, what more could I ask from the team, except we should have had more goals in the first half and then I think it would have been even more convincing. It was dominant, it was dogged when it needed to be, I thought tactically we got it spot on. I thought we dealt with the threats really well, we kept a clean sheet and in Fran and Sam, what more could I say, amazing.

“As manager of Chelsea, I represent a club of people, backroom staff, players, owners, board – we are united in teams that we want to build at Chelsea, tonight we have painted Wembley blue.”

Chelsea return to action on Wednesday evening when Juventus are the visitors to Kingsmeadow for a UEFA Women’s Champions League group fixture.