{"id":25479,"date":"2026-09-03T07:53:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=25479"},"modified":"2026-09-03T07:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T07:53:30","slug":"hunted-have-become-the-hunted-insides-chelsea-quest-to-reclaim-their-womens-super-league-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=25479","title":{"rendered":"Hunted have become the hunted: Inside&#8217;s Chelsea quest to reclaim their Women&#8217;s Super League crown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div aria-label=\"main body\">\n<div>\n<p><span>When it comes to implementing these off-pitch changes, a pre-season tour can go a long way. Chelsea\u2019s took them to Australia and New Zealand this summer, where Bompastor believes the players had the opportunity \u201cto spend time together to understand each other\u201d on and off the pitch. \u201cI think when you build those relationships and those connections off the pitch, you always get better things on the pitch as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>There, the hope will be that Matsukubo, Dragoni and Malard can bolster what was a stuttering attack, as can McCabe\u2019s wonderful crosses from open play and set-pieces. Healthier seasons for James, Ramirez, Aggie Beever-Jones, and more, would also help. Bompastor wants to concede fewer goals as well, and not having the injuries at centre-back that Chelsea did last season will, again, go a long way towards that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Off the pitch, it\u2019s clear that Bompastor wants this group to be in the right place to be a winning machine again. There have been some big personnel changes this summer and adjustment will be needed. However, there are still so many experienced characters in this squad, whom she will hope can lead the way in creating the necessary environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The early signs, in that regard, are good. Bompastor speaks to <\/span><b><strong>GOAL<\/strong><\/b><span> after delivering a pre-season training session to her team that she revealed beforehand was going to be \u201creally challenging\u201d. But their reaction to that sort of thing has been encouraging. \u201cThey are really enjoying working hard together,\u201d she notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to implementing these off-pitch changes, a pre-season tour can go a long&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}