Lucy Bronze: Chelsea squad depth key to quadruple

Chelsea defender Lucy Bronze believes the squad depth of the reigning Women's Super League (WSL) champions will be the key to winning a quadruple as they prepare to face Manchester City in the League Cup final on Saturday.

The west London side have been unstoppable this season, maintaining an unbeaten record and dropping points only twice in WSL draws against Leicester City and Brighton.

They remain in contention for a quartet of trophies, having reached the FA Cup semifinals, the Champions League quarterfinals, and the League Cup final.

With an eight-point lead at the top of the league table, Chelsea will look to take another step toward silverware when they clash with City at Pride Park, Derby, this weekend.

With a quadruple insight, Bronze -- who has previously achieved the feat with two other European clubs -- believes squad depth is crucial to sustaining dominance throughout a season and securing multiple trophies.

"I think honestly that's the sign of a top team for any season," she told ESPN. "I've played at Lyon, I've played at Barcelona and won quadruples with both those teams and there wasn't one player that was relied on for either of those teams. It was a collective and if someone was missing, someone would step in."

Since the start of the season, Chelsea have had 14 different goalscorers in the league, netting 45 goals in 16 games. They also scored 19 goals during the Champions League group stage, coming from 11 different players.

"I think that's what it takes to be at the top level," she continued. "We have so many games at such a high level to have everybody fit throughout the season is impossible. And that's part of the reason at Chelsea we have such a big squad, we have amazing players. We have I think two or three internationals in nearly every single spot across the pitch and it's for that reason. When we get to parts of the season where people go missing, we have someone else who can step in and nothing changes."

Despite leading the goalscoring charge, Chelsea have been without prolific striker Sam Kerr since January 2024 after the Australian suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury while on a training camp for the midseason break.

United States women's national team forward Mia Fishel suffered the same injury a month later.

At the start of the season, The west London side were dealt two further blows with Sophie Ingle and Kadeisha Buchanan picking up the same injury.

"We have more players, so obviously more chance of injuries, but we do have a lot of injuries and I think you kind of just have to prepare for that. It's hard to, it's not the players' fault that they're getting injured. Players are trying to train hard and there's different variables throughout the season," she added.

"We knew from the start of the season, we had Soph [Sophie Ingle] and Kadeisha [Buchanan] two big players, lots of experience, ACLs bang at the start of the season. I don't think people really appreciated how much that hit us as a team to then carry on and then other injuries within that season as well."

With Sonia Bompastor's side heading into the end stages of the domestic cups, continental tournament while still playing in the league, the French coach has been forced to rotate her XI heavily, both for tactical reasons and due to injuries and illnesses.

While this provides its own setbacks, it has seldom troubled the team, yet to lose a game.

This is what makes Chelsea capable of winning a quadruple, Bronze believes.

"I did think it was a possibility [that Chelsea would be unbeaten]. It's something that I spoke to LJ [Lauren James] and Millie [Bright, captain] about. This Chelsea team, the strength and depth we have to go to put out a strong team every single week is kind of unheard of in England previously. I said to both of them, I was like, there's no reason why we can't just beat every single team in the league.

"It's not that simple, but a reason would be because of tiredness and this and the other teams are fantastic as well, but we should be able to match that."

Bronze recalled her previous experiences playing in England and, how commonly, one or two injuries have depleted a team and derailed their campaign.

Manchester City faced a similar issue recently, having had Alex Greenwood, Lauren Hemp, Vivianne Miedema and Khadija Shaw -- WSL's leading Golden Boot -- unavailable, causing them to drop points and fall out of the league title race.

"I think we showed that in the Arsenal and City games, they've been so close, it's been one deciding factor and I think if we didn't have as big a squads, maybe it might have went against us, we wouldn't have had the team to put out on those games."

Chelsea face City in the League Cup final on Saturday in Derby in the first of four games against last season's WSL runners up in the span of only 12 days.

After the cup final, the pair meet in the Champions League quarter finals, with a league clash sandwiched in between.

Despite being unbeaten all season, Bompastor and the team have carried the same messaging, insisting that it is impressive, but they are yet to win anything. Saturday's clash will provide the first opportunity for the French coach -- who only joined the side in the summer -- to lift a trophy with the London club.,

"We've had such a good run in the season so far with not losing games and being at top of the table, top of our champion league table, but I think this is the moment where it matters now," Bronze said of the upcoming final.

"It's all very well doing all that work, hard graft in the first six months, now to actually have a chance to get a trophy, this is the one that we need to pull out our performance and make sure that we get our silverware, what we're talking about, wanting to be winners, wanting to win trophies.

"This is the first one. It's arguably the most important to set us on our way to achieve what we want to achieve."