Chelsea Women travel back to Hungary to face Wolfsburg in the second leg of the UWCL quarter-finals following their 2-1 victory last week.
Emma Hayes’ side beat Wolfsburg for the first time in their history thanks to goals from Sam Kerr and Pernille Harder; with Dominique Janssen stepping up to the spot to secure her team the away goal in the second half.
The German side dominated in the first half but it was Chelsea’s formidable duo of Sam Kerr and Fran Kirby who combined once again to open the scoring early in the second half.
Hayes praised their ability to work together as well as the individual qualities that have seen them link up to score 37 goals this season: “For me, the thing that stands up is the selflessness. It’s making runs or decisions for someone else.
[blockquote text=”The amount of times Fran has been in great positions herself and set someone else up or the amount of times Sam makes a run, if not for herself but to clear space. That for me is as impactful as the chemistry between them.” show_quote_icon=”yes” text_color=”#dd3333″]
“The amount of times Fran has been in great positions herself and set someone else up or the amount of times Sam makes a run, if not for herself but to clear space. That for me is as impactful as the chemistry between them.”
Despite the advantage going into the second leg Hayes says going into this game her team have to be better than they were in the first leg.
“It’s important we play our game on Wednesday. Our concentration and focus has to be extremely high because I expect even more relentless pressure from Wolfsburg.
“They are Champions League finalists, multiple times. We are winning at the halfway point but they have the experience of being in this position so I expect the game and the challenges that they throw at us will be even bigger than they were in the first leg,” she added.
Captain Madga Eriksson said they treat the two legs as one big game, with last week being the first half: “A 2-1 win in a good platform before the next game but we can’t treat this as anything other than it’s still game on.
“There are 90 minutes left to play and we know it’s going to be tough. It’s really important we look at the last game and learn.”
Beth England travels with the team after returning to training following a concussion and is available for selection for this tie. She is joined in the twenty-one strong squad with Niamh Charles despite being unable to play after picking up her second yellow in the first leg.
Kick-off for this game is 1 pm, with coverage starting at 12:45 pm on BT Sport 2.
