Sonia Bompastor is delighted to have Sam Kerr available for Chelsea’s Women’s Super League opener against Manchester City, but she knows that patience will be needed after 20 months for the Australia star.
Kerr tore her front cruciate ligament in January 2024 and missed the second half of the last season of Emma Hayes with the blues and the entire Bompastor debut campaign.
The most recent Chelsea performance by the attacker came on December 20, 2023 in a 3-1 victory over Hacken in the Champions League.
She returns to a Chelsea side that won a domestic treble in the previous term and added the FA Cup and League Cups to their sixth consecutive ladies Super League crown.
Chelsea scored 56 goals in the WSL last season, a noticeable drop of the competition record 71 that they knew in 2022-23.
In fact, that count was their lowest in every full campaign (excluding the short season 2019-2020) since Kerr’s arrival of 2020 (also 69 in 2020-21, 62 in 2021-22, 66 in 2022-23).
Since Kerr made the switch to England, she has scored 58 WSL goals. Only the Khadija Shaw from Manchester City, with 62, has noticed more often in the competition at that time.
Kerr stands in line to return her when Chelsea City welcomes to Stamford Bridge for Friday’s curtain variety, but Bompastor is aware that she might need time to get up at speed.
“Yes, Sam Kerr is in the team, so she will be involved in the game,” Bompastor told reporters. “We don’t know if she will start or not, but she is in the team.
“She is in a good place, she has trained well, she is physically in a good position. She is also mentally in a good position, she is one of the players that everyone wants to see on the field.
“It is also nice for me to have her in the team with her leadership, her experience, but at the same time she has long been away from the field.
“I think we still have to be patient with her, and that is normal that she is not yet at the best level, but hopefully she will soon be. That is already a good step for her to be in the team.”
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