‘We’re in the tie!’ Emma Hayes defiant despite Chelsea facing daunting Camp Nou challenge

Not giving up: Emma Hayes believes Chelsea can cause a second-leg upset at the Camp Nou next week
PA
Dom Smith22 April 2023

Emma Hayes insisted her side did not suffer as much as they might have, despite Chelsea falling to a 1-0 defeat at home to Barcelona in their Women’s Champions League semi-final first-leg tie.

The Blues were beaten at Stamford Bridge by Caroline Graham Hansen’s superb fourth-minute goal — meaning they were unable to avenge their 4-0 defeat at the hands of Barca in the 2021 final. The second leg on Thursday will see Chelsea play at the 99,000-seater Camp Nou.

Asked whether Chelsea suffered as much as she suspected they would, Hayes replied: “Actually, I didn’t think it was too bad. Yes, they had a lot of the ball, but we put them in the areas we wanted them to be in. The goal came from a quick restart for them. I didn’t see anything I don’t already know.

“They’re an amazing team,” she said of the visitors. “We had a disappointing start. We gave away a 0.03xG [expected goals] chance. That’s brilliant individual play. But we grew into the first half, scored a goal that was offside through Guro [Reiten]. As I say, you have to be perfect to beat these guys.”

Reflecting on the balance of the tie, Hayes said: “It’s 1-0. I’m grateful to be in a place where the tie isn’t over. You have to be in the tie — we’re in the tie. Now we have to prepare for another game.

“That’s my big message. Stay in the tie. The team — as a whole — defended as well as we could. The first 10 minutes was, for me, the problem. We weren’t aggressive enough.”

Chelsea were without first-choice centre-back pairing Kadeisha Buchanan and Millie Bright against Barcelona, with both defenders unavailable through injury.

Asked whether the pair might have made a difference, Hayes shrugged and said: “I can’t know that, can I? We’ve got to be better going forward. There’s no issues with us defensively.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in