For a player who hasn’t lost all season, Chelsea captain Millie Bright remains fixed on those times few and far between her all-conquering Blues side have experienced defeat.
‘I think the losses always stick with you,’ Bright tells Mail Sport at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground, ‘I know some people can put them to bed, but for me personally, they stay with you.’
In this instance, Bright is referring to the club’s League Cup final record of late: in the last three years, Chelsea have lost three consecutive finals, with the competition a recurring thorn in the side of a team used to the spotlight of success.
But on Saturday, amid an eye-catching unbeaten season under new manager Sonia Bompastor, Chelsea have the chance to reverse the trend in the rechristened Subway Women’s League Cup final when they face WSL rivals Manchester City at Pride Park.
Bright in particular is determined to use those repeat defeats as the necessary petrol to power a one-of-a-kind season.
‘They’re the fuel every day,’ Bright continued. ‘On the days when you think you’re having a bad day, they’re the moments that really fuel you to go to the next level and do that extra rep, or to work on that extra technical thing, or do the extra running.
Millie Bright is using the memory of League Cup finals missed to spur her Chelsea side on this weekend in Derby
The Blues captain is imbued with the club’s winning DNA and is keen to secure the quadruple
Under former manager Emma Hayes Chelsea became the most formidable prospect in the WSL
‘It’s moments like that where you know you’ve got to go to another level to make sure next time you get that opportunity, that the outcome is different.’
Under former manager Emma Hayes, Chelsea were transformed into a near-unbeatable winning force, claiming seven WSL titles, five FA Cups, two League Cups and, in 2021, the domestic Treble.
But since her departure at the end of last season, incoming head coach Bompastor was not content to rest on her predecessor’s laurels.
‘It’s been the smoothest transition you could have asked for as a player,’ Bright says of Bompastor’s move to west London, ‘she’s a fantastic manager, and a brilliant person, and the team she’s brought with her – they’ve just slotted in like they’ve always belonged here.
‘I think it’s really taken us all to a new level. I’ve felt that individually, but even as a team, it’s feels like we’ve got new heights to reach now. Sonia is well aware (of how prepare for finals) and we’ve done that previously (as players), but we know that it gets harder each time.
‘It’s about ticking the days off, doing all the right things every single day, and making sure you leave no stone unturned, really, and that you can look back and say you were the best prepared, you gave everything.’
Bright is keen to talk up the ‘standards’ Bompastor sets in the dressing room – although the team haven’t experienced defeat under their new manager and remain in contention across all four competitions, the players are under no illusion over how Bompastor might react to a loss.
‘I think you learn very quickly how competitive she is and how much drive she has, but that’s the sort of mentality and attitude that is infectious – it’s contagious,’ Bright continues.
New manager Sonia Bompastor has set standards even higher and the team are still unbeaten
‘We’ve always been a competitive group, but this just feels something different this yea. There’s been many performances where, yes, we’ve got the job done and we’ve won, but we’re not happy with the performance, or it’s the smaller details that you know, okay, we’ve won (but) this is not good enough. This has to be better.
‘I think everyone thinks because we’re doing so well that those conversations don’t happen, but they do happen, and they happen on a regular basis. We fill each other with confidence, but most importantly, we demand so much more from each other.
‘By having that mentality, in the tough moments in games, we’ll be ready if we do face a situation that we’re not used to being in. The right behaviors on a daily basis, the intensity we train at, and what’s expected is crystal clear.’
Let up for the side may not come until the dust settles on the end of the season. Eight points clear at the top of the WSL table, victory on Saturday could spark a hunt for an unprecedented quadruple. Needless to say, conversations on the subject of the potential for history-making are kept short at Cobham.
‘We do like to stay in the moment,’ Bright adds thoughtfully, with the slight air of unwillingness top players have when drawn on similarly forbidden topics. ‘But we do make ourselves aware of what’s at stake.
Conversations, she shares, happen at the start of the season, when objectives for the campaign are laid out and assessed at regular intervals.
‘I think it’s always good to know what’s in front of you, and what you are fighting for,’ she allows. ‘Because of you don’t, you don’t know what you’re going to lose, potentially.
‘But it stays there, and we deal with the game in front of us.’
Bright is unwilling to buy into too much thinking about a history-making quadruple – preferring instead to stay in the moment
But the Blues will have a difficult opponent to grapple with on Saturday following Man City’s sacking of Gareth Taylor
The game in front of Chelsea is a peculiar one. Bompastor’s side have to contend with a Man City team that replaced head coach Gareth Taylor with just days to go before a cup final. Even more intriguingly, the match will kick off four consecutive meetings between the two teams – across three competitions – with the power to determine their seasons.
Bright admits that the circumstances are ‘really strange’, wondering if the women’s game has seen similar in England, but insists that the psychological quirk won’t affect the team on Saturday. Neither will the grueling schedule competing on four fronts requires.
‘I think we thrive having lots of games,’ Bright says, adding that this is something that the perennial champions have become used to preparing for at the sharp end of the season. ‘We’re blessed with a huge squad where we can have those rotations, but ultimately everyone’s pushing each other to make sure that come that final day, we’re the best prepared.’
That Chelsea can cope with the slings and arrows of injury due to their talented ranks is no understatement – Thursday saw Bompastor confirm that those absent from the tie will include January signing Keira Walsh, Guro Reiten, and Naomi Girma, the player the Blues smashed the transfer record for just two months ago.
But Chelsea’s strength, Bright says, is their ‘collective effort’, a shared understanding of the size of the target on their back and the constant need to ‘keep the DNA of winning at this club’.
One that is imbued in their longest-serving player most keenly. Bright signed a new deal to keep her in west London until 2026 in a boost for the club ahead of a make-or-break run. Despite having won 14 trophies in blue since signing in, the defender’s thirst for winning remains unquenched.
Chelsea’s longest-serving women’s player signed a new deal with the club just last week
‘I wouldn’t know how to be any other way,’ Bright says when asked how she stays hungry at the highest level. ‘It is just who I am as a person, and I want to see my teammates succeed as well.
‘I want to push everyone and when my time’s up, I want my legacy to live on. I want to have, treasured the moments that I’ve had with this club, but also want people to look and know (that’s) what a Chelsea player should look like.
‘I find it pretty easy to keep pushing, because I’m so hungry for more, and there’s still so much more to give.
‘But I think this new era that we’re in, as well as giving everyone a boost of excitement, has made us really want to push on, and want more, and do more, and be even better. So it’s an exciting place to be.’
