After being kept on the bench on the opening weekend of the Women's Super League, Sam Kerr is set to be finally unleashed after her 'tough' 20 months on the sidelines with injury.
Chelsea coach Sonia Bompastor confirmed on Friday that 'hopefully we'll see' the Matildas captain in action at last at Aston Villa on Sunday after her eagerly awaited comeback was put on hold against Manchester City last weekend.
Kerr was an unused substitute in the Blues' 2-1 win over the Citizens.
'I think Sam is ready,' Bompastor said in a news conference.
Kerr, who turned 32 on Wednesday, is tipped to start on the pine.
'She's doing everything she can to be available for the squad, available to start a game,' Bompastor said.
'Again, it's a balance between what she has been doing the last weeks and also the fact that maybe she's not like 100 per cent ready to start a game, but not far from that.'
The pressure of a tightly-contested opening win over fellow championship contenders Manchester City lay behind Bompastor's decision not to give her star striker a first appearance since December 2023, which was a month before she suffered the ACL injury that has sidelined her ever since.
'It was only my choice not to have Sam coming in in the game last weekend, but again she's had a good week, she's in a good place mentally, physically, so maybe on Sunday, we'll see,' said Bompastor.
Asked about how frustrating it had been for Kerr, who has scored 99 goals for the club, to miss out on a season when Chelsea won the WSL title for a sixth straight year, Bompastor conceded: 'Yeah, it's been tough.
'Even if Sam is someone really positive and she cares about the team and she always puts the team first, it's been tough for her personally.
'Being away from games, winning trophies as a competitive person, it's always difficult.
'So the best way for us as a staff and as a club to support her was to make sure we gave her a lot of support in different ways, having different conversations with her, but also making sure she could feel our love in those more difficult moments.
'I think she's part of the family, and she could feel that when she was injured, which is something really important for her.
'Now she's just happy to be back, not officially yet in the game, but around the team in training sessions.
'She played some minutes in pre-season, so the next step for her is to be involved in an official game in the league, and hopefully we'll see that on Sunday.'
basacdeopu
12
she will injured again until she stop libialism