Eriksson targets revenge in Chelsea’s final showdown with Manchester City

Emma Hayes has described the Chelsea captain, Magda Eriksson, as “a main reason we’ve been a winning team for years” and praised her influence on her return from three months out to help navigate Chelsea to a third consecutive league title and Sunday’s FA Cup final against Manchester City.

Eriksson suffered an ankle injury during Chelsea’s 4-0 Champions League defeat to Wolfsburg in December, ruling her out of action for a significant part of the season. “We knew it was an injury that was going to take a bit of time,” says Hayes. “Naturally, the team was going to lose something. In Aniek [Nouwen] we have a player that doesn’t have the experience but stepped into a space that helped develop the team in some different ways. However, Magda’s our captain for a reason.”

When Eriksson was fit again in March Hayes was reluctant to put her straight back into a team on a winning streak, despite her quality. “I really rate and respect Magda but we had conversations around being patient and I knew that moment would come. Neither of us thought that would be when we went down to 10 players at Tottenham.

“Having Magda’s leadership back on the pitch, and I don’t want to take anything away from Millie [Bright] because Millie’s been amazing, but having both of them together brings another dimension to us managing really tough moments. Particularly when the stress levels go up.”

Being out was “a challenge”, says Eriksson. “It was my first long injury in a very long time. It wasn’t nice to be out for three months and not be part of the team.

“But watching the team play and watching players grow in that period, every single player stepped up so that made me really proud. I was sad not to be part of it but it made me really proud to see how