Our first away trip of the new campaign takes us to the Joie Stadium for the lunch-time kick-off on Sunday, where we will face a Manchester City outfit who like ourselves started their season with victory on the opening day.

We overcame Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 at Stamford Bridge thanks to goals from debutant Mia Fishel and Lauren James. A goal in each half ensured we took three points from our opening league fixture for the first time since 2019.

Hayes addressed the media at our Cobham training base on Friday afternoon where she outlined what to expect from this weekend's opponents, the high levels of motivation within her squad and individual displays of quality.

Having started the WSL season with a win for the first time since the 2019/20 campaign, Hayes insists she does not focus on league tables and her attention is on making sure the players remain hungry to succeed.

‘I’m not preoccupied with tables. The most important thing is that the motivation in the dressing room is there day in, day out regardless of the result. If you have that then it’s where you finish at the end that is going to matter. We have a really hungry dressing room.

‘Everyone wants to play and everyone is good enough to play. For us, the challenge is maintaining that hunger when we can only pick 11 players every week. We have to make sure we all perform and if we do that then we have another chance of winning a trophy.’

Ashley Lawrence, Sjoeke Nusken and Fishel made their official Chelsea debuts on the opening day. The latter netted our first goal of the season on what was a dream debut and Hayes believes the sky is the limit for the American.

‘We know exactly what we’re getting with Mia both on and off the pitch. In her mind, this is all she has ever wanted, to play for Chelsea and a no-brainer. She is a sponge and wants to learn and improve. She has all the attributes to be world-class, but now she has to work hard.

‘She has to get things right in training to make sure she understands her all-round game and put it together, but what a fantastic start.’

Manchester City were our opponents for the second game of last season on home soil, and we face them at the same stage this time around. Hayes explained the qualities within their ranks and she expects a difficult assignment on Sunday.

‘Man City are a team that have had minimal disruption over the summer with [Jill] Roord coming in adding a lot in that 10 position, she has a goal threat. They have cohesion in the way they play and confidence in what they do. They are a team that can build up with good width, low full-backs, inverted full-backs and they have good variety in their play.

‘They have a player in [Yui] Hasegawa at the base of their midfield who has been pivotal to their success. As we know in the front areas they have [Lauren] Hemp and [Chloe] Kelly, good one-v-one players and Bunny Shaw – a prolific striker. A top team and it’s a really difficult place to go.’