Sonia Bompastor picked up where Emma Hayes left off and delivered a sixth triumph in a row last year. Will anything change in the 2025-26 season?
It's six years since a team other than Chelsea lifted the Women's Super League title, when Arsenal, once the dominant domestic force, ended their unprecedented seven-year wait for the trophy. The Gunners are the most successful English women's team in history and used to sweep up the honours. Indeed, their 2007 season is historic, as the only quadruple-winning campaign for an English team ever. But their last WSL triumph represents one of just two seasons since 2015 that have ended without Chelsea being crowned champions of England.
Last year, the perception was that the Blues were vulnerable. After over a decade at the helm, Emma Hayes departed at the end of the 2023-24 campaign and she did so having won just one piece of silverware. In terms of trophies, it was Chelsea's worst season since 2019, when they didn't lift any. As Sonia Bompastor came in to fill some very big shoes, the feeling was that this could be a transitional year for the club and, as such, there would be opportunities for others to have success.
Bompastor's Blues made all that talk look incredibly foolish. In her first season in charge, the Frenchwoman guided Chelsea to a campaign of historic proportions. The WSL title was wrapped up at an earlier rate than ever before as they became the first team in the league's 22-game era to go a whole season without defeat - and triumphs in both the FA Cup and League Cup meant that added up to an unbeaten domestic campaign.
Yet, as the new season prepares to get underway, with the Blues kicking it all off in a blockbuster clash with Manchester City on Friday, those murmurs about someone other than Chelsea winning the WSL will inevitably return. Surely someone can stop them, right? Surely they can't win the title seven years in a row?