Sonia Bompastor: “We are ready”
“I will be the most happy person if we win on Saturday but just for my players and for the club,” said the Chelsea head coach. “The game is an opportunity for the club to grab the first trophy. We said from the beginning of the season, we want to be in every competition in a position where we can fight for titles. It’s a really important moment for the club. I’m expecting Nick to be able to bring some positive energy to City, but we are ready.”
Nick Cushing: “We’ve got to embrace it”
“In the previous teams I had [at City], there were great people,” said the club’s interim manager in the build-up to today’s game. “I met this team this week and it is exactly the same.
“They are really good people with a real hunger to continue to win. I’ve been able to take these moments in my stride. The next four games are the ultimate challenge for our group, so we’ve got to embrace it and attack it.”
Chelsea: While she won’t play today, star striker Sam Kerr has been included in Chelsea’s squad for the Women’s Champions League knock-out rounds in an indication she is nearing a return from injury. Jack Snape reports …
Chelsea: Hampton; Bronze, Bright, Björn, Baltimore; Nüsken, Cuthbert, Macario; Rytting Kaneryd, Ramirez, James
Subs: Spencer, Lawrence, Charles, Jean-Francois, Brown, Kaptein, Hamano, Beever-Jones, Fishel.
Man City: Yamashita; Casparij, Prior, Aleixandri, Ouahabi; Hasegawa, Roord, Miedema, Fujino, Shaw, Fowler.
Subs: Keating, Layzell, Coombs, Wienroither, Kerolin, Park, Blindkilde Brown, Oyama, Murphy.
Faye Carruthers is joined by commentary box legend and national treasure Robyn Cowan, and Guardian writers Suzanne Wrack and Tom Garry to discuss Gareth Taylor’s exit from Manchester City and today’s Subway Women’s League Cup Final, among other topics. You can listen here and if you’re not already a subscriber, where have you been?!?!?! Sign up for free wherever you get your podcasts.
Today’s match officials
Chelsea: History has all too often illustrated that when a leader departs a sporting dynasty it is a far from easy adjustment; that it will take a little time to regroup and recalibrate. For Chelsea, however, the transition from Emma Hayes’s decade-long reign to new beginnings under Sonia Bompastor appears to have caused barely a ripple. Words: Sophie Downey.
Early team news
Chelsea’s star striker and long-term absentee, Sam Kerr, is in the late stages of her recovery from a ruptured ACL but remains unavailable. She is fast approaching a return and has been named in her side’s Champions League squad for the remainder of the tournament. The club’s record-breaking signing Naomi Girma is also out with a calf injury she suffered on her Chelsea debut a fortnight ago. Maelys Mpome, Guro Reiten, Mia Fishel and Keira Walsh are also sidelined.
Manchester City’s German international centre-back Rebecca Knaak is out with a hamstring injury, but winger Aoba Fujino could return after recovering from a foot problem. Long term absentees Alex Greenwood and Lauren Hemp are also out as they continue their recoveries from serious knee injuries. Greenwood has abandoned the tedium of life on the stationary bike for training on the grass, but Hemp is a little further behind in her recovery.
Welcome one and all. You join us at the beginning of quite the twoodyssey and what will be the first of four games in a row between Chelsea and Manchester City across three different competitions over the next 12 days.
It is a remarkable quirk of both circumstances and the calendar and if the hoary old saw that familiarity breeds contempt is correct, the players from both sides will completely sick of the sight of each other once they’ve contested today’s League Cup final, followed by both legs of a Champions League quarter-final either side of a WSL encounter.
Unbeaten this season under Sonia Bompastor, Chelsea are fighting on four fronts at home and abroad but today’s match represents their first chance to win silverware since their French head coach filled the extremely big boots vacated by Emma Hayes at the end of last season. The succession plan could scarcely have gone more seamlessly but as we approach the business end of the season, Manchester City have the opportunity to throw multiple spanners in the currently purring Chelsea works.
Installed as interim head coach at Manchester City until the end of the season following the dismissal of Gareth Taylor on Monday, Nick Cushing will be hoping to provide a new manager bounce and could get off to a flyer by winning a final in his first game in charge. He has form in the field of acquiring silverware with Manchester City, having won the WSL, two League Cups and an FA Cup during a previous seven-year reign at the club that ended in 2020. Kick-off at Pride Park is at 12.15pm (GMT) but we’ll have team news and build-up in the meantime.
