Chelsea Women head coach Sonia Bompastor says winning the WSL title “feels a bit unreal” as winning goalscorer Lucy Bronze targets an unbeaten season.
The Blues were crowned league champions for a sixth successive season with a 1-0 win against Man Utd Women on Wednesday evening.
It came after Arsenal Women were thrashed 5-2 by Aston Villa Women earlier in the day, meaning Chelsea needed just a point from their trip to Leigh Sports Village.
However, it was not a position Bompastor expected to find herself in, telling Sky Sports after the game: “It’s a great achievement.
“It feels a bit unreal but we weren’t expecting Arsenal to drop points tonight, but being away, being able to bounce back after the game on Sunday and being able to win against a big team feels amazing.
“I told my team before the game that’s a big opportunity for us to take a step closer to the title, even if I was not expecting this to be real. I’m so proud of my players, all the staff, the team and club.
“Starting the season, I was not expecting us to be in that position and able to achieve that with two games left. I knew we worked hard to fight until the end.
“The biggest challenge is perhaps my English? But this league is really competitive so just for us to be in that position to be unbeaten and to achieve what we just did is something very good.
“Not easy to come as a new manager, to a new country, to adjust to a new league. I learned a lot. But I have a great bunch of players and also a great staff. I’m not the only one.”
Bronze: We want to go unbeaten now
Chelsea’s title-clinching goalscorer Bronze is now aiming for an unbeaten season.
No WSL team has ever done so in a 22-game season, and with two left to play against Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, the Blues are hoping to avoid their first league defeat of the campaign.
Bronze told Sky Sports: “We knew a draw was good enough as well. We wanted to be unbeaten and keep a clean sheet, but it’s nice to score and get the win. It’s better to celebrate being champions when you win a game.
“The fortunate thing for us this season is we’ve been unbeaten so there’s always been two things to go for.
“Although we’ve won tonight, we know we’ve still got two games and we want to win those games. We want to be unbeaten all season.
“The nice thing is that we get to finish at home at Stamford Bridge and all the fans get to come down and celebrate winning the trophy.
“It was nice to come here and celebrate a win, the title and move past the disappointment of the weekend.
“Next season we can push on and improve a lot more having not been at our best for the second half of the season. Sonia has done well so far, she wants a lot more from us and we can give it.”
Hampton thanks Villa for Arsenal win
Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton thanked her former side Aston Villa after their win against Arsenal paved the way for the Blues to clinch the title.
She told Sky Sports: “It’s unbelievable, I don’t think I’ve got enough words. I’ve got to say thanks to Villa for helping us at the start of the evening.
“I’m so excited and happy to be in this team. We’ve achieved everything we wanted to, maybe not in the Champions League, but we fight until the end.
“That’s what we’ve done here, we’ve won the league with two games to go so we’re all ecstatic. Best believe we’re not going to let up for those games, we want to go unbeaten for the whole season.
“We knew we had to respond in a good way. It’s probably not the way we wanted to go out of the Champions League. We knew we could have put up a bit more of a fight, but there’s always next year to come.
“Right now, we can enjoy this. We’ve got them again in a few weeks’ time, so it’s going to be a tough game then to get the treble, but we’re going to give it our all.”
