Chelsea manager Emma Hayes says that she is expecting her side to come up against a Manchester City side who are full of confidence at Kingsmeadow this afternoon.
Despite a difficult start to the season, The Cityzens arrive in KT1 unbeaten in their last nine matches. Like latest opponents Chelsea, Manchester City qualified for the FA Women’s Continental League Cup final in midweek.
When speaking ahead of this afternoon’s meeting, Chelsea boss Hayes said that Manchester City are a very different team to the one which The Blues faced during the first half of the season with improved confidence being a major factor.
“Clearly, they’ve got all of their players back but they are full of confidence, they’re scoring goals, they’re keeping clean sheets….confidence,” Hayes said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “Confidence is one of those things, I think it will be a case of two confident teams playing this afternoon as opposed to the first time around.
“I think they have players who are really on form like we do but we are at home, every team wants to play at home and especially after the performance we put in on Wednesday. It’s going to be a sell-out and it’s going to be loud.”
With both teams having faced frantic fixture schedules in recent weeks including semi-finals in midweek, one could be forgiven for thinking that the latest Chelsea v Manchester City instalment may lack the excitement and drama of previous encounters. Hayes went on to highlight the mental intensity that the game will create for the players.
She said “I think that they need to win as much as we need to win. What does it look like? So much more tactical than any other game that we play because both teams have been together for a long time. As a result of that, we know each other inside and out and we know that there really isn’t that much between us. That sizing up is because of the history.
“Do I think it’ll be any less intense? I think it’ll be mentally intense, it’ll be about being switched on.”
The Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture between Chelsea and Manchester City is scheduled to kick-off at 12.30pm this afternoon.
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