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For many teams in the Women’s Super League, losing a player to injury as influential as striker Sam Kerr would be a body blow. But not so for Chelsea. Emma Hayes’ Double winners have plenty of options up front and have now increased them with the €450,000 world-record signing of Levante star Mayra Ramírez.
What the 24-year-old Colombia international offers is one of the things Hayes values so highly at Chelsea: adaptability. Possessing the ability to play anywhere along the forward line, Ramírez is likely to be used as a No. 9 striker to help fill the void left by Kerr’s ACL injury, but she can also drop into the No. 10 midfield role, or play out wide.
Ramírez is a proven goal scorer and found the back of the net 14 times in 27 league appearances for Levante last season. This season she has struggled with injury but has still managed six goals in seven appearances for Liga F’s second-placed side.
Her real strength, which has been shown for both Levante and Colombia (especially at the 2023 Women’s World Cup), is her unselfish linkup play. Indeed, while all eyes were on teenage sensation Linda Caicedo during Colombia’s run to the quarterfinals, Ramírez’s ability to dovetail with veteran Catalina Usme proved to be particularly important.
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At club level, that ability to come inside and linkup with Natasa Andonova and Alba Redondo has helped Levante a lot. Yes, Ramírez is strong on the ball — especially good at shielding it and keeping possession — but she’s also light on her feet and capable of a deft touch. Indeed, many of her attacking qualities overlap with those of her new teammates at Chelsea: like the strength we’ve seen from Mia Fishel as she drives forward, Lauren James’ quick feet, or Fran Kirby’s ability to shield the ball.
Ramírez will likely trade time with United States star Fishel as the No. 9 striker before another USWNT squad member, Catarina Macario, returns fully from the ACL injury that has kept her out since the last day of the 2021-22 season. But what of James or Kirby?
Chelsea aren’t only competing for the WSL title this season, but they are in the knockout stage of the Women’s Champions League and will play games in the Conti Cup and FA Cup in February, too. To go far in all these competitions, a number of attacking options are required, and Hayes will surely need to call on them all.
In the 3-1 win over Manchester United in the WSL last weekend, Fishel played the first half as the central striker, but James stole the show with a hat trick and was moved up after the break. Hayes praised the England international’s overall performance, but James is not the natural answer to Chelsea’s striking conundrum.
Indeed, after the Blues beat Real Madrid 2-1 on Wednesday night in the Women’s Champions League, Hayes said: “We all know Lauren James is a natural No. 10.”
So with James pulling the strings from midfield and left free to float about the pitch as she pleases, Kirby — who has “more natural tendencies centrally,” according to Hayes — is another option for the No. 9 role. Out wide, Hayes can pick from Kirby, Guro Reiten and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd. Or bring Aggie Beever-Jones off the bench and push Sjoeke Nüsken into a more advanced role. The possibilities are endless, though it does beg the question of where exactly Macario is going to play when she returns? Chelsea are always better when they can overload the opposition. The squad’s fluidity allows them to try different ways of unlocking defences, but what has proven particularly effective, with players like Ashley Lawrence and Niamh Charles driving forward from the full-back positions, is to have a more natural centre-forward — someone who can occupy the centre-backs or run at the defence and offer a passing option. That is one of the areas where we are likely to see Ramírez thrive. She’s a player with fantastic potential and, despite the record-breaking transfer fee, it’s possible we could be looking back and thinking just what a bargain she was at the time. Hayes is leaving for the USWNT job this summer but has spent her time at Chelsea innovating, developing and evolving her squad, strengthening it at every opportunity. Even with her imminent exit, she is still trying to get the team to the best place possible for the person who takes over. Financial backing from Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly has certainly helped and, while he has been happy to spend £1 billion on men’s players over the past three windows, we know that won’t translate over to the women’s team in the same way. Still, with a high-profile move for Ramírez, Boehly clearly believes that investing in the women’s team is worthwhile and that is a scary thought for their WSL rivals.
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