THE NARRATIVE was all about Emma Hayes bowing out as Chelsea manager after 12 years with yet another trophy in her hands. The Women’s Super League has been dominated for five years by Hayes and her team and the WSL top three has remained more or less constant for a decade, with the exception of one season. Like the Premier League, the predictability has a somewhat dulling effect on everyone bar the supporters of the successful clubs.
Chelsea were written off by Hayes a few weeks back after they had lost to Liverpool at Tranmere’s Prenton Park. They had also been bounced out of the UEFA Champions League and they lost the League Cup final to Arsenal when Hayes appeared to lose her cool after the match. She also spoke out about intra-team relationships which didn’t go down well with some of her squad. It looked as though she would be leaving for the US with a relatively mediocre and fractious season behind her. But something clicked and her players reacted in style. Furthermore, Manchester City, the champions elect, went and lost to Arsenal and the title was on again.
It was all over by half-time on the final day as Chelsea went into a 4-0 half-time lead at Old Trafford, where 28,000 had turned up to see if the London side could deprive City of the title. Hayes brought in the menacing Mayra Ramírez, one of club’s new signings in 2023-24 and within two minutes the Colombian battering ram made it 1-0 with a textbook header. There was no turning back for Chelsea and 6-0 was no more than they deserved. City won 2-1 at Aston Villa, but Chelsea clinched the title by virtue of a superior goal difference. Chelsea’s triumph was almost as inevitable as Manchester City’s fourth successive Premier league win.
As with Pep Guardiola, there is something special about the way Hayes controls her team. She’s tough, uncompromising and, apparently, a very good manager of people. This season she has also shown she can reveal a grudging response to defeats, although as coach of Chelsea, it is not something she is particularly accustomed to. She departs for the US probably disappointed that her time with Chelsea did not bring the UEFA Champions League to the club. Once again, Barcelona showed Hayes that her team is still not quite matching the all-star Spanish side. Three out of the last four seasons have seen Chelsea eliminated by Barca and this season, they seemed to have done the hard work by winning 1-0 in Spain before losing 2-0 at Stamford Bridge.
The WSL is growing in popularity, but there is a difference between the showpiece games at big stadiums and the bread-and-butter fixtures at small arenas. Chelsea, for example, play in front of around 3,000 at Kingsmeadow, but their games at Stamford Bridge have averaged around 20,000. Some clubs have made great efforts to bring huge crowds to the “occasions”, such as Arsenal who have been creating records this season. At the moment, there’s no sign that the appetite for women’s football is diminishing, but the demographic of the crowd has developed into something very different from the men’s game.
There is a growing feeling the WSL should be expanded to try and close the huge gap that exists between the top and bottom. Emma Hayes joined the chorus for change by suggesting the WSL should be expanded to 18 teams (a 50% increase) in order to inject more unpredictability to the competition. In 2023-24, the bottom five won 19 games between them, while Chelsea and Manchester City, the top two, each won 18. Hayes also fears there may be a loss of female coaches due to the demands of the role. In 2024-25, there will be just two women coaches in the WSL, West Ham’s Rehanne Skinner and newly-promoted Crystal Palace’s Laura Kaminski. The rest of the WSL may breathe a sigh of relief now that Hayes is gone, and with a 71% win rate, her stats make her one of the most successful coaches in the modern game. She will be a tough act to follow.
GAME OF THE PEOPLE 