Chelsea Women have made a promising start to our European campaign, with four points from our opening two games, following a draw at Real Madrid and home win over Paris FC last time out. We will be hoping to continue that with another good result when we host BK Hacken at Stamford Bridge on Thursday evening.

Looking ahead to that game, manager Emma Hayes confirmed that Millie Bright and Jelena Cankovic remain out of contention, but there is a chance Melanie Leupolz could return to the team to be involved in some form.

‘Millie’s still out, Jelena’s still out, Melanie should be ready for the bench tomorrow,’ said Hayes. ‘Melanie has had the flu. She was back and would have been in the squad at the weekend but she pulled out on the morning of the game.

‘She was ready to train today, she still doesn’t look 100 per cent with that to me. I said she can be on the bench tomorrow but we feel maybe it’s in her best interest to be available for the weekend and give her three training days, knowing she’s been in bed for the last five days.

‘Everything else with regards to the hamstring has cleared up. I’m pretty sure she would have featured at the weekend if it hadn’t been for a bit of illness.’

Despite our good start in the Women's Champions League, we go into our next match against Hacken two points behind our opponents in the group table, after they begun with back-to-back wins over Paris and Real Madrid.

That means there is no chance of the Blues underestimating the Swedish visitors, as Hayes underlined when she gave her verdict on the challenge we will face at the Bridge tomorrow.

'We’ve seen the way they’ve played in the Champions League and the league,' she continued. 'We know that they’ll cause problems, particularly in transition. They are a very atypical Swedish team in the way they defend in a 4-1-4-1. They’ll make it difficult for us to have the inside of the pitch so we need to have variety in our play.

'They're very resilient defensively, tough to break down, and very clinical. They take their chances, especially in the transitions. You have to be switched on, particularly from set-plays. They’ve just proved their efficiency.

'We’ve prepared in the best way. We only had one day preparation time, but we’re used to doing this and we don’t take them lightly. I know the team is switched on, trained really well today, and our focus is all on tomorrow evening.'

One member of the Blues squad will know our opponents well, with Johanna Rytting Kaneryd having moved from Hacken to Chelsea in 2022, and Hayes discussed the winger's progress since coming to London.

'It took 12 months to settle in, not through lack of effort or trying,' said Hayes. 'Improving her decision making and execution and building that confidence to compete in a team like ours took a while, but she has shown more consistent behaviours in all of those things.

'She would agree with me there’s another level to go. She’s been contributing to many more goals this season, including scoring at the weekend. She’s a very conscientious, very determined individual, to keep improving. We’re really happy with the progress she’s making.

'There’s never a ceiling ever, for any of them. If you want to play at the top clubs you have to keep improving, so that will be for here entire time here.'