Renée Slegers cannot wait to get going this season, and after winning up the Champions League in our last competitive outing, full focus is on picking up where the side left off in May.
We defeated Barcelona on a memorable day in Lisbon to lift our second European crown - and while going into the 2025/26 as the continental champions could add pressure, our head coach is remaining calm ahead of our opening WSL clash against London City Lionesses.
"We always feel pressure, for as long as I've been here," she said in her pre-match press conference. "When we play our games, the opposition want to go out and try and beat us. That's always there and it will be this year as well.
"In that sense, nothing changes for us, but we have to be very, very aware and that's part of how we approach our games and our season, that we have to be very consistent with everything we do and that's within our control."
We last picked up the WSL title in 2018/19, with Chelsea winning each of the last six league titles. We signed four players in the off-season, all coming in July, and Renée is hopeful that bedding new players in early can help us go one step further and lift the WSL.
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She said: "I think for us it was really important to have a good idea early of how we wanted to build the squad. Across the club, with everyone involved, we did a really good job of being very proactive and early with what we wanted to achieve. I'm really happy with the squad that we have.
"There is zero guarantee because I think what we achieved at the end of last season, there was so much work put into it. If you look back at the season we had, there were so many challenges that we had to overcome along the way.
"A lot of things weren't perfect. Then you end up at the end of the season winning the Champions League.
"That also brings us a lot of clarity. You will go through different phases in a season, not everything has to go and be perfect but you have every single day ahead of you to be able to make the best out of it and things are possible. What we learned is that we have a belief in what we do. What we also learned is that we need to be very humble. There's no guarantee.
"We just need to understand that what we do, what we put in every single day can lead to something. Still, there are no guarantees but we'll do everything we can."
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