Chelsea boss Emma Hayes expects a different challenge this weekend when they take on Arsenal in the Continental League Cup final at Selhurst Park, despite only facing the Gunners a week ago in the FA Cup.
On that occasion, the Blues emerged with a 2-0 victory following goals from Sophie Ingle and Sam Kerr. This week, they may be coming up against a familiar rival, but the Chelsea boss anticipates both managers will make tactical changes and they have to be ready to adapt.
"I think it’s probably the same question you’d ask anybody who does any performance," she told the media this week.. "You ask someone who’s going on stage and they’re having to produce the same performance every night, of course, the script almost looks the same but the reality is that person will notice some differences in their performance.
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"Or, they’ll make changes and adaptations. It’s the same for us, yes, we know the opponent, but football is fluid in the sense both teams will always make little adjustments here and there and you have to keep adapting to that.
"I just know, from our perspective, we’ve had a long time to keep working on ourselves. We just have to make the tweaks as and when the game starts and adapt."
For Chelsea, this week's preparation has been much simpler after the international break and players returning later than usual presented challenges for both teams ahead of the FA Cup tie. Hayes was pleased to report no fresh injury concerns and insists the possibility of securing their first trophy isn't at the forefront of her mind.
"I don’t think about how many we can win," the Blues boss continued. "Other people do, which is fair enough, but I just think about getting through the training week and preparing the players as best as possible. It’s felt a lot easier this week to do that because we had everybody here.
"So we’ve been able to get everybody fresh and recovered. I thought we trained smart today, the players. I thought we took on the tactical detail without disrupting too much of the flow. I thought it was a solid session today from the group."
Arsenal are currently the most successful team in the competition with five trophies to their name, while Chelsea have won the Conti Cup on two occasions back-to-back in 2020 and 2021. Last season's winners Manchester City beat the Blues 3-1 in the final, but were knocked out at the semi-final stage this time around.
Chelsea have faced the Gunners in the final of the competition on just one occasion in the 2019/20 season. The Blues recorded a 2-1 win over their rivals at Nottingham Forest's City Ground with a Bethany England brace securing the victory.
This year's showdown will be staged at Selhurst Park, the home of Premier League side Crystal Palace. On Friday, it was confirmed tickets have sold out for the first time in the competition's history with almost 24,000 issued. The current attendance record for a Conti Cup final is 8,004, which was set last season, but it's set to be comfortably broken again this year.
Arsenal will have Lina Hurtig back in contention for Sunday after she withdrew from the Sweden camp during the international breakthrough injury. However, goalkeeper Sabrina D'Angelo remains a doubt.
Kick-off on Sunday is at 3pm and the match will be broadcast live for UK viewers on BBC One and can be streamed on BBC iPlayer.
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