How Chelsea bounced back from Khadija Shaw snub to build the WSL's most lethal attack

It's quite a place for Chelsea to be in given how frustrating the start of the summer transfer window was. After Shaw chose to stay at City, the Blues unsuccessfully pursued both Felicia Schroder, who signed for Real Madrid, and Salma Paralluelo, who joined Lyon. With top-class centre-forwards so difficult to find, it looked like all of those on the market had slipped through their fingers.

And so Chelsea changed tact a little. In came Manchester United's Melvine Malard who, like Paralluelo, can play as a No.9 and has also been used a lot as a wide player. There were eyebrows raised at the fee paid, but head coach Sonia Bompastor knew the player well, having overseen a lot of her progress through the Lyon youth set-up before coaching her in the first-team, and she liked the versatility Malard could bring.

"Sometimes when you are managing a team like Chelsea, it's important to find the right balance in your squad in terms of numbers, but also quality," she explained to GOAL in the summer. "I think having players who are able to play at the highest level with a really good level of performance in many positions helped me try to find the right balance between having the right number, between the competition being too high with having too many players to deal with.

"From my experience, it's really difficult when you have players who have a lot of experience, they are all international players and they are not getting minutes on the pitch. It's always difficult to manage them, and for a good reason because they all want to play, and I understand that, so sometimes having players who are able to play many positions helps you not to have too big a squad."

Malard, who already has six goals for her new club, joined a versatile group, too, with Ramirez - who remains unavailable for selection after missing all of last season with a hamstring injury - perhaps the only forward in the squad who cannot be used in different positions. That has allowed the Chelsea attack to possess a greater air of unpredictability, which Bompastor values.

"I think it's important to be unpredictable," the Chelsea boss said earlier this season, speaking after a 5-0 hammering of Manchester United in which Lauren James, naturally a wide player or a No.10, played as the Blues' No.9. "You can do that with sometimes having depth in your squad, having different profiles who can come in and impact the game. You can do that using different systems.

"I always said I want to be a team able to play in two different systems, not because I want to play with the team, just because I think it's good for us to be able to play in those systems, to be more unpredictable.

"That's important because I think now the tactics are observed so much by everyone. We know everything about the other teams, we can watch the games, we have the statistics, so we know everything. So when you can be a little bit unpredictable, that's good, and when you can have the players who are still impacting the game no matter what is happening on the pitch, I think it's even better."

It isn't just about the forwards either. Keira Walsh, for example, has been posing a much greater threat to the opposition's goal this season because the emergence of Lexi Potter has allowed the former Barcelona star to push on more. Walsh already has two goals and four assists to her name through her first 12 games of the season, more goal involvements than she had registered in all of her previous 47 appearances for Chelsea prior to this campaign. That is giving opponents something else to think about.

Ellie Carpenter, too, has looked a much more potent threat down the right - something the numbers back up, with her averaging more shots and key passes per 90 minutes this season than last. She has five goals already this term as a wing-back.

Combined with the excellent performances of players in that forward line, like James and Malard, it's all helping Chelsea to be a multi-dimensional and unpredictable attacking force. No team in the WSL has had more different scorers this season than the Blues' 12.

There is reason to believe things can get even better, too. Injury means Manaka Matsukubo, the creative midfielder who has been one of the best players in the NWSL over the last two years, has yet to make her mark on this team, while Giulia Dragoni, the highly-rated Italy international who joined from Barcelona in the summer, is also still to grow into a prominent role.

Match that with the meanest defence in the division, which has conceded just five times through nine games, and Chelsea will fancy their chances when City come to town this weekend, even if Shaw, their No.1 centre-forward target in the summer, remains prolific.

No one has scored more in the WSL so far this season than the 29-year-old, whose 12 strikes through nine games have helped City to score the second-most goals in the division thus far. Indeed, she heads into Saturday's clash having scored 15 times in 14 games in all competitions this season, for club and country.

But it is Chelsea's adaptable and unpredictable attack that leads the way as the best in the division right now, after the Blues' excellent response to Shaw's summer snub.