"Chelsea are going through a transitional moment and it takes time for the club to rebuild." Not pundit analysis, but the thoughts of Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor to Sky Sports ahead of the new WSL season. And despite the hint of cliché, it works. There has been plenty upheaval over the last two years, starting with Bompastor replacing Emma Hayes.
Then, there was the shock departure of Paul Green as head of women's football in February. Alongside Hayes, the duo oversaw years of unprecedented success. It is something hard to sustain and even harder to replicate.
But that is the task that falls at Bompastor's feet. She managed to keep it going in her first season with an unbeaten domestic treble - some may say with Hayes' influence still in play - but her second campaign exposed the realties. Chelsea were not the team of old and a new era was beckoning.
Now in her third pre-season with the Blues, Bompastor believes she has the backing of the club to do just that. "I think now I understand what the club is about a lot more," she said. "I also understand what we want to achieve and bringing my input into that.
"It's good to be in a place where I feel the confidence and the trust coming from the hierarchy in the club. As much as I know my job, we need to get good results in order for me to stay as long as possible, but it's also important to feel like we also have time to rebuild the team in order for us to compete against the best." Chelsea only won the League Cup last season and finished third in the league behind Manchester City and Arsenal. It was the first time in six years they had not walked away with the WSL title.
Bompastor reflected: "We wanted last season to be a more successful season because Chelsea is a club who is used to winning. We only won one trophy, but if you analyse it, we have some good learnings to take and that's really important for us to reflect on. "We spoke a lot about the environment and the culture we want to create here at Chelsea.
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