A Chelsea fixtures programme heavy with away games against West Ham United in the coming days begins tonight with a cup match for Emma Hayes and her side.

Next to kick off will be our Under-18s on Saturday morning before Graham Potter’s players are in action at the London Stadium that lunchtime. It is far from the only sign of unity across the club.

For Chelsea Women it is a semi-final, the next stage in the quest to regain the Continental Cup won in 2020 and 2021, and ahead of the contest, Hayes has been speaking about the bond that exists across all the teams at Chelsea, starting with time spent recently with Potter and the owners.

‘The other day I had lunch with Graham and Todd and Behdad, it's a family here. It's more of a family here than it's ever been,’ she said.

‘And as a football club, I think we have to be excited about the new era and I know from our owners they're doing their best in a really short space of time to help us go to the next place. We had a great lunch the other day, all four of us, and it was a really warm, lovely environment, and a lovely lunch.’

On the number of additions to the men’s squad in recent weeks, Hayes said: ‘Coaches always want extra players so it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It will make it competitive. There are of course challenges to managing that but Graham can do that.’

While taking Chelsea Women on to the next place is very much on the agenda in this new era, women’s sport in general is growing healthily in England, with a recent report showing an increase in the past year of 131 per cent in the time an average person spends viewing women’s sport on TV.

‘Phenomenal numbers,’ is Hayes’ response to this, ‘but it's what happens when you put it there.

‘I've always felt consistency and regularity of scheduling, whether that's where we sit on Sky Sports News to scheduling games at times that people start to identify as a slot for a women's football match, all of these things add up.

‘Regular reporting etc., that visibility the game now has, it’s starting to attract its audience and that audience is varied and diverse and one that we are probably still understanding - so fantastic numbers to build on.’

• Tonight's West Ham Women vs Chelsea Women match kicks off at 7.15pm and can be viewed on BBC iPlayer and the FA Player