Leupolz hoping to carry momentum into West Ham
Chelsea made it five wins in a row with victory over Ajax in the UEFA Women’s Champions League on Tuesday and Melanie Leupolz is hoping to keep building on recent performances in our next match against West Ham United.
Following that win in the first leg of our quarter-final in Amsterdam, attention switches back to the Women’s Super League today as we travel to West Ham for a 4.30pm kick-off.
It is another vital game as we continue to push for silverware on four fronts, as we currently lead Manchester City in the title race by the slimmest of margins, thanks to a two-goal advantage on goal difference.
Having now won all five matches since the start of March across four different competitions, Leupolz is hoping Chelsea can continue that run into our next match against the Hammers.
‘I’m super proud of the performance against Ajax, it was really good,’ she said. ‘Having a result like that in the Champions League first leg is really good.
‘I think the performance was also really good against Arsenal, super aggressive, and I think we built some momentum and confidence which we took into the Champions League game against Ajax, which you could see.
‘So I think we can be happy with the performance and we’re looking forward to the next game now. Hopefully, we can take the momentum and confidence into this game as well and take the three points.’
Our run of victories has been all the more impressive because it has come during such a busy period, with all five within the space of 17 days, while missing some key players to injury.
‘We have been building this in the last couple of games. It’s an intense phase of the season right now. We have had many injuries but I think we’ve compensated for them really well.
We stick together as a team anyway and that’s why we have been successful. It was super difficult but I think we handled the situation really well so far, so hopefully we don’t drop any more points before the international break. That’s the goal.’
The first hurdle in pursuit of that goal arrives this afternoon against West Ham. We will try to extend our winning run to six matches but the Blues midfielder knows it will be another tough game.
‘I expect them to be super aggressive,’ Leupolz added. ‘They will make our life as hard as possible, try to keep it tight at the back and not concede an early goal, or any goals at all.
‘It will be super difficult to break them down so we need to be patient, put them under pressure and play with urgency to break them down.’
