Emma Hayes hopes Chelsea players’ WSL success is never taken for granted
Emma Hayes has said she hopes Chelsea supporters do not begin to take her players for grantedafter an unprecedented successful period at the club.
Hayes’s side welcome Aston Villa to Kingsmeadow on Wednesday night as they return to Women’s Super League action after two consecutive losses in cup competitions. Sunday’s FA Cup defeat to Manchester United followed a tempestuous loss to Arsenal in the Continental League Cup final.
Chelsea under Hayes have won the WSL in each of the last four seasons, won the FA Cup for the past three and have frequently reached the latter stages of the Champions League, with a semi-final first leg against Barcelona to come on Saturday.
Hayes’s 12-year spell as manager will end this summer as she takes charge of the US team. Chelsea are second in the WSL, three points behind Manchester City.
Hayes praised her team’s record of success and hoped that was still in the memory of supporters. “You know how well they’ve done over such a long period of time and how proud I am of the way we keep pushing to be in the back end of everything,” she said. “I want to play at home in Kingsmeadow in front of a fan base that I truly hope will appreciate this group of players because I believe this team over a number of years has delivered so much success to this football club. And to these fans, and sometimes I feel the players get taken for granted on that. So I want their fans to show appreciation to them tomorrow.”
When pressed on whether she felt the media or the wider public had taken
Chelsea for granted, she responded in typical fashion: “I don’t care about you lot! I only care about the fans and I care that they realise that the level of success we’ve had is difficult.
“All the time to keep winning and winning and winning, I’m proud that we keep doing that, even if it doesn’t always go our way. We have to just pick ourselves up and go again.”
Hayes confirmed that Nathalie Björn, Maren Mjelde and Millie Bright would still be unavailable against seventh-placed Aston Villa.
When the Villa manager, Carla Ward, was asked if it was a good time to play Chelsea given their recent setbacks, she said: “A wounded animal is a dangerous animal.”
The reverse fixture in November came on the day it was announced Hayes would depart this summer and Villa were thrashed 6-0, leaving them bottom with no points from five games. They have subsequently bounced back to claim 20 points from the 13 matches that have followed.