Chelsea women & Canada defender Kadeisha Buchanan suffers torn ACL as Sonia Bompastor confirms devastating blow

Bompastor confirmed after Chelsea's superb win over Manchester City that Bompastor sustained an ACL injury during the Blues' victory over Liverpool earlier this month. The news is devastating for the WSL title contenders, with the centre-back almost certain to miss the remainder of the season.

Remarkably, Buchanan is the sixth Chelsea player to be sidelined with an ACL injury, joining Jorja Fox, Sophie Ingle, Sam Kerr, Mia Fishel and Aniek Nouwen on the treatment table for the same issue. Niamh Charles and Lauren James have also missed lengthy periods, with Bompastor having to battle with availability issues throughout her spell in west London.

Bompastor said after Chelsea's win over City: “I didn’t want to talk about it before, because we just found out the last results this morning but Kadeisha tore her ACL in the Liverpool game.

“I’m really sad and I didn’t want to talk about the situation before the game because I wanted my players to stay focused on the Man City game. But everybody in the club is devastated about the news.

“She was performing very well. She was an important player for us but now this is the situation so we just now are going to support her as much as we can, players, staff, club and yeah she’s strong, she’s okay. She will have surgery and then we have to move on.”

Chelsea are next in action against Celtic in the Champions League on Wednesday before another titanic WSL fixture, this time against Manchester United. Bompastor's side are currently unbeaten at the top of the WSL, with seven wins from seven.