Sam Kerr talks harm return, new management and Chelsea silverware goals
Sam Kerr is not placing a date on her return to the pitch as her ACL restoration nears its finish forward of the upcoming 2024/25 Barclays Ladies’s Tremendous League season.
The striker, who prolonged her contract at Chelsea for one more two years this summer season, missed out on an enormous chunk of final season after being struck down by harm in January.
The devastating blow, which occurred in Morocco at a heat climate coaching camp, meant Kerr missed out on Chelsea’s nail-biting title race and the chance to symbolize her nation on the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Though claiming this week that she is “near getting again on the sphere”, Kerr confused she is not speeding again.
Talking to Optus Sport, the 31-year-old defined: “The harm is sweet. I am not placing a date on my return, simply ensuring I get it proper and ensuring I really feel good earlier than I get again on the pitch.
“I imply, it is my second ACL, so I do know it’s essential to take the time, it’s essential to be certain it is proper and I am doing all the things I can. However there’s positively no rush for me, I need to be certain I can play for a lot of extra years to return.”
The striker shortly grew to become one of many world’s most well-known gamers after signing with Chelsea forward of the second half of the 2020/21 season. Final 12 months, her spectacular performances on the pitch noticed her named runner-up for the Ladies’s Ballon d’Or, having completed third the earlier two years.
Chelsea Soccer Membership can verify striker Sam Kerr has sustained an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) harm throughout our heat climate coaching camp in Morocco.
— Chelsea FC Ladies (@ChelseaFCW) January 7, 2024
Forward of her harm, she’d scored 99 profession objectives for Chelsea and will definitely be seeking to construct upon that quantity when she’s totally recovered. Throughout her restoration, nevertheless, Emma Hayes confirmed her departure from the membership, which means Kerr will make a return beneath new supervisor Sonia Bompastor.
Regardless of admitting that the primary few days after Hayes’ exit felt a “bit bizarre”, Kerr praised the character Bompastor has delivered to the crew.
“Sonia’s are available and achieved very well to implement her personal character on the crew, and we’re all having fun with it thus far,” she mentioned. “To start with, she’s French and he or she’s very French and I feel she’s bought a superb ba;lance of getting a joke and having fun, but additionally fairly strict and to the purpose, which I feel we like and we wanted.
“I feel she appears actually, actually good and actually robust, in a great way.”
Chelsea might be aiming for a sixth consecutive WSL title subsequent season – one thing Kerr clearly desires to play a pivotal function in – however lifting the Champions League is considered one of her essential ambitions subsequent 12 months.
“We’d like to win the Champions League, that is the one we would like,” she revealed. “I feel yearly that is what we shoot for. We have fallen brief just a few years in a row and hopefully Sonia brings that to this membership. However, clearly, we need to win as many championships as we will.
“We might like to retain the league once more, get the Conti Cup again, get the FA Cup again, however the primary one for us is the Champions League, and we’re going for that this 12 months.”
