On both occasions Lauren James was the first name on the scoresheet, followed by Sjoeke Nusken scoring twice, and with the Blues now control of the quarter-final tie after this first leg victory, Emma Hayes spoke about the pair of players, the performances overall, and an outstanding defender at the back.

Beginning with James and Nusken, the Chelsea manager quickly pointed out: ‘These are two young players we're talking about, aged 22 and 23.

‘Nusken has a natural ability to be in the right spaces inside the box. She's a box player, no question. She wants to be there, and the third goal epitomised her desire, her positioning and her quality. Once again, they worked really well off each other and certainly built off of the last performance.

‘When you're in possession and you play against a team that man-mark, you have to move them,’ Hayes added, assessing the game as a whole.

‘But you have to recognise that if you move too much you lose your own structure and in the first 15 minutes, we had both full-backs going on and we were too keen to join the play. That first 15 minutes was a little transitional, Ajax created their chance, but from then on we were in complete control of the game.

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‘The players carried out the game plan in and out of possession the way we wanted and it was good to experience VAR for the right reasons. I've always wanted VAR for big decisions, and it showed tonight that it was important and both big VAR decisions were correct.’

Although her team have a good lead in the tie going into the second leg, and played well against Ajax in the first meeting, Hayes had a word of caution about the re-match.

‘When you’re used to European competition you know they're two very different games. When you go away and you win games like this, the brain gets a little bit relaxed. You go home and you see an opposite performance.

‘I felt that when we played Lyon last year - we went away and it was a disciplined performance. We went home and Lyon were the dominant side even though we went through. We need to heed that warning and share that experience with the players.

‘I do really trust in the squad. It was difficult to make changes tonight on the back of the Arsenal performance but I think we are going to have to make changes in the next two games because I could see some of the fatigue in some players, so everyone's going to be counted on.’

Our manager expects Mayra Ramirez to return for next week’s second leg and she rates Nathalie Bjorn as 50-50 to be back on the bench for the WSL game this weekend. Millie Bright is likely to take a little longer.

‘She had a little setback, a bit of inflammation,’ reported Hayes. ‘She's had to build a little bit more muscle above her knee and that work has to be done in the gym. She's working on that in the background and I don't know when she's going to be ready but I hope she will be after the international break.’

While Bright is out, one of the players in central defence is Kadeisha Buchanan. Hayes told the Canadian at the end of the Ajax game that she had put in an amazing performance.

‘She told me when she came to Chelsea that she wanted to be one of the best defenders in the world and I don't think she's always fulfilled that, and she knows that. She's gone away, she's played games in the Gold Cup, that built her confidence, and she's come straight in and she's not looked back.

‘That's what happens with competition. You do one of two things - you sink or swim. All the work we do on our basic actions in training, it's starting to shine through and she, along with Nusken, were the best two players for us tonight.’