How Chelsea bounced back from quadruple disappointment to ensure USWNT-bound Emma Hayes earned a perfect farewell with another WSL title

There is no more obvious obstacle that Chelsea have had to overcome to win the WSL than injuries. Every team has them, sure, but the players Hayes lost for long spells this season made things remarkably tough.

Millie Bright, her captain, didn't start a game for six months because of a frustrating knee problem, and that first start back came after the team had already lost the Conti Cup final and been knocked out of both the FA Cup and Champions League. It means Jess Carter, still only in her first full season as a regular starter in the heart of defence, has had five different centre-back partners this term. That's not an area you want to chop and change in a lot, but Hayes has had no choice.

Then there has been the awful luck in attack. Sam Kerr, Chelsea's star striker, went down with an ACL injury during a warm-weather training camp in January, and just a few weeks later, Mia Fishel, her back-up, suffered the same fate on international duty.

That Mayra Ramirez, the decisive performer in Saturday's title-winning win over Man Utd, has struggled to stay fit following a big January move from Levante has only rubbed salt into the wounds. As a result, there has been a lot of rejigging needed in the No.9 role, too, and other players have had to rise to the occasion, particularly with Kerr missing.

That's where we have seen young stars come to the fore. Lauren James, at 22 years old, has regularly stepped up and delivered big goals to keep Chelsea in the hunt for success, as has Aggie Beever-Jones, two years her junior, in a breakthrough season that has ended with her first England call-up.

Carter's reliability in defence has been crucial given the aforementioned circumstances in that area, while Erin Cuthbert and Niamh Charles have shared the armband in Bright's absence and developed as leaders as a result, as well as setting the standard with their performances.

There have been fantastic first seasons from Sjoeke Nusken and Hannah Hampton too, both 23 years old, while Maika Hamano (20) and Catarina Macario (24) have also shown glimpses in their first steps as Chelsea players, the former coming through as a youngster who was on loan in Sweden last year and the latter off the back of almost two years on the sidelines.

It certainly bodes well for the future that these younger stars are stepping up to the plate, as it is not only Hayes who is departing this summer. Fran Kirby and Maren Mjelde, two experienced players who have been essential to Chelsea's success over the last few years, will also leave the club, while Ann-Katrin Berger, No.1 for the past five years, exited earlier this season.

There is a slight changing of the guard going on, then, and so for so many of this next generation to have handled the pressure in this title race will have pleased Hayes as she aims to leave the team in a positive place for whoever follows in her shoes.

Hayes' upcoming departure, announced back in November, has only intensified that stress. That’s no one’s fault in particular, it’s just something that happens when a manager decides to move on after such a long time, especially a manager who has been as successful as Hayes. As a result, the narrative that has surrounded Chelsea's season has been unique and it creates a different type of pressure, similar to that which Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool have struggled to deal with this term.

There has been a lot of emotion surrounding their season and that has surely made the defeats more difficult to get over, because of the players' desire to deliver something special in Hayes' final season.

So many of them have spoken about wanting to win for the manager, and so to fall short in three different competitions in the space of four weeks must have been incredibly tough to deal with, especially as a shock defeat to Liverpool in the league came just a few days after their Champions League exit. It looked like that was it then, that the WSL was off the table as well and that Chelsea would end the season without a trophy.

But that's not how Chelsea operate. This team might be a little more youthful and inexperienced, but you need to be a special kind of player to represent this club, the type that can recover from disappointment and deliver. The resilience the squad has shown to bounce back from those brutal few weeks has been decisive in getting them over the line and a marker of what the Blues have been all about under Hayes.

"I think that has been us all along," the manager said this week. "You can't win everything all of the time, you really can't. To be in a position to compete for our fifth title in five years, I'd like to see another team do that over the next five years. I say that because nobody really understands how hard that is, to repeat winning, so to be in a position to compete for that, that's all I wanted the team to be in. It's been a slog."

Nothing better demonstrates the winning mentality that allowed Chelsea to be in that position again than the 8-0 thrashing of Bristol City, the result that put the Blues back in control of a title race that had seemingly gotten away from them.

There might have been some luck a few hours before when Arsenal did the Blues a favour at Man City, but you need a bit of luck to win a title and Chelsea certainly haven’t got it on the injury front. And besides, there was nothing lucky about the way Hayes’ side demolished Bristol City to go three points behind the Cityzens with a game in hand, all while removing the goal-difference advantage that their title rivals held over them.

Once Arsenal had secured those huge three points in the north west, there was a feeling Chelsea could do something like this. While Man City struggled to break the Robins down just a week before, Chelsea were never going to pass up this opportunity. That’s the ruthlessness Hayes has instilled in her team over the past 12 years. It's what we saw in the 6-0 battering of Man Utd on Saturday, too. It's why they have now won the league five times in a row.

Last year, the fourth title in succession, was admirable. Chelsea had to deal with a lot of injuries and players had to adapt to deliver that trophy. But this one, with even more injuries thrown their way, with so many setbacks in other competitions to bounce back from, and the intensity added by Hayes’ impending exit, is even more impressive. It’s a high she and all of those departing deserve to go out on.