Why Sonia Bompastor was “frustrated” with Chelsea draw against London City Lionesses | OneFootball

Sonia Bompastor

Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor admitted she was frustrated after her side managed only a draw against London City Lionesses on Saturday.

She had admitted earlier in the week that she was expecting a tough game from a team in their first season in the top flight.

And though Johanna Rytting Kaneryd opened the scoring for the Blues at the Den, Izzy Goodwin equalised eight minutes from time to share the points.

It means Chelsea are now down to third in the table, nine points behind leaders Manchester City, with their hopes of defending their WSL title now extremely slim.

“We’re frustrated about the result for sure,” said Bompastor, according to the club’s official website. “We took a point today, and in the title race, every game is important. So not a good result. I think we had a good first half in terms of the way we played. We created some opportunities, and we scored one goal.

“When we started the second half, we created two big chances to score. We couldn’t score that second goal, and we suffered a bit at the end of the game.

“We knew in this block that this match had the quickest turnaround in terms of recovery between the games. That’s why we decided to rotate the squad.

“We are still confident because, from what I can see, from the players and the quality we have, we can still beat every team in this league. We know it will be tough, but we are playing Manchester United in the last game of the season, and we’ll see what happens.”

Sonia Bompastor: I’m proud of young Chelsea players

Those squad rotations included another start for Lexi Potter – who shone in midweek against Brighton – and a first start for Chloe Sarwie.

And Bompastor said the performances of the young players were a bright spot.

“I’m really proud of the players who started the game, the way they delivered and performed,” she said, adding: “I liked the performance they were able to have on the pitch. It’s great experience for them as well, being able to play in these tough games. It will build them for the future.

“As the Chelsea manager, I think it’s good when you have the opportunity to give the chance for a young player to start games.”