A blog of two halves

Ladies have tough games ahead

With the men gallivanting around the world, it's a chance to look at Chelsea Ladies.

4 September 2017
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Emma Hayes (right), manager of Chelsea Ladies, embraces Fran Kirby

With the men gallivanting around the world, it's a chance to look at Chelsea Ladies, who start their season on the 24th at home to Bristol City at Kingsmeadow, Kingston.

The lunchtime game is BBC-televised, but tickets are on sale, via the Chelsea website, at £6 (£3 concs).

Emma Hayes' team gave themselves a tough pre-season, with ties against Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg.

Yet two defeats is almost irrelevant; it was terrific experience to play Europe's most formidable women's sides.

But the UEFA Women's Champions League draw has paired the Blues with Bayern Munich in the first round, meaning European action at Kingsmeadow in the first week of October.

Pre-season gave England players Millie Bright, Fran Kirby and Karen Carney a chance, with the Blues playing a back three with Ji So-Yun up front.

The experience gained, and observations made, will prove useful in plotting European glory.

These are fascinating times for Chelsea Ladies as the women's game goes from strength to strength.

"I think you can see in every position we're now assembling a group that is going to compete with the top clubs in Europe," said Hayes.

Meanwhile, the late-night signing of Danny Drinkwater, as the men's transfer window creaked shut, broadens the Blues' midfield options, but crucially re-establishes a supremely productive partnership with N'Golo Kante from Leicester's pinch-yourself title win. And who's up next? Inevitably, Leicester.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

He also writes our Shepherds Bush Cricket Club match reports during the football close season.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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