Best league in the world? That’s open to more debate than the English media may have you believe, but it’s fairer to say that the Women’s Super League is an outlier among its prominent European contemporaries, in that it’s difficult to predict with certainty just who will lift the trophy come the season’s end.
With that in mind, let’s look at last season’s Top 5, and how the best laid plans could work—or not work—for them this season.
Art by Anita Sambol Baniček
CHELSEA
If Things Go Well
Emma Hayes has gone, so are perennial champions Chelsea now vulnerable?
Well, consider this. Chelsea will probably line up in some version of a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formation. Here are the options for their front three or four: Lauren James, Guro Reiten, Aggie Beever-Jones, Mayra Ramirez, Sandy Baltimore, Maika Hamano, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, and, injury questions notwithstanding, Cat Macario, Mia Fishel, and Sam Kerr.
One could argue that, as far as volume, versatility and quality goes, a better battery of attackers cannot be found at any other club in any other league. Chelsea have numerous get-out-of-jail cards if they find themselves in trouble during the season. And more pertinently, they understand how to navigate a title run-in, whether leading from the front or chasing the leader.
Chelsea have it in them to win every domestic trophy, as they will start most games they play this season as presumptive favourites. But this isn’t always the case in the Champions League. However, the past couple of seasons has seen them get closer to knocking off the current holders, Barcelona—something Bompastor has managed at Lyon. Do not be surprised if this is the campaign in which Chelsea lift the Champions League for the first time.
If Things Don’t Go Well
Emma Hayes has gone, so are perennial champions Chelsea now vulnerable?
While Hayes’ departure isn’t likely to precipitate Chelsea imploding, there’s definitely scope for a measure of disruption. Not…
Source link : https://www.footballparadise.com/womens-super-league-2024-25-preview/
Author : Shane Thomas
Publish date : 2024-09-19 14:39:19
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