Chelsea star left in tears after hair pulled by Arsenal rival | Football

Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor felt her players ‘deserved more respect’ after the Blues hopes of reaching the Champions League semi-finals were dashed by a 3-2 aggregate loss to Arsenal.

Sjoeke Nusken scored in stoppage time at Stamford Bridge to inspire the hosts to a 1-0 second-leg quarter-final victory which was overshadowed by a late incident that appeared to show Arsenal defender Katie McCabe pulling the ponytail of Chelsea forward Alyssa Thompson, who was left in tears.

McCabe later claimed on Instagram that she was ‘genuinely’ reaching for Thompson’s shirt, offering her opponent ‘full respect’, but Bompastor felt the episode deserved a review by the match officials.

‘I just think it’s not good enough,’ said Bompastor, who was visibly outraged on the touchline.

‘At the end I’m the one who gets a red card where I think the Arsenal player should be the one who gets a red card.

‘What is the VAR doing in these games? If we have the VAR, why are we not checking these situations? I don’t understand, and it’s not good enough.’

Bompastor was still raging by the time she gave her TV interview with the BBC, arriving armed with a mobile phone in hand and a clip of the moment McCabe pulled Thompson’s hair asking: ‘Why do we have VAR?’.

She added: ‘I don’t want to speak to them [the officials] because it’s always the same story.

‘Even if I go and speak to them, they will not give me a clear answer. It’s difficult for me because I don’t want to be the only one talking about this situation.

‘Everyone needs to understand that’s the difference between being qualified and not being qualified. It has a big impact on players.’

Chelsea, meanwhile, look unlikely to catch Manchester City in the WSL title chase but remain alive in the FA Cup, and will take on Tottenham in Monday’s quarter-final.

‘The reality is, for a club like Chelsea, (our season) is not good enough,’ admitted Bompastor. ‘I’m not happy about the fact that I can’t help the team more than we did this season.’

Arsenal’s Champions League title defence continues with a semi-final matchup against either Lyon or Wolfsburg, who enter Friday’s decider locked in a goalless aggregate stalemate.

Boss Renee Slegers, who did not feel the hair pull was deliberate, said: ‘It was an unbelievable performance from the team, because it is a hard scenario.

‘I think it’s special to be a part of this. I really enjoy being with these people every single day and the process that we’re in and the results that we’re getting.

‘I think everyone feels this way about what we’re doing at the moment. We can never get comfortable in this, even though we have to enjoy where we are at, but we have to keep on striving for more and better.’

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