Fran Kirby says Chelsea Women must be fearless against Lyon on Sunday
Thursday 18 April 2019 15:42, UK
Chelsea Women will have to be fearless in the Champions League semi-final against defending champions Lyon, according to forward Fran Kirby.
The English side travel to France for the first leg before welcoming the French league leaders to Kingsmeadow the following weekend.
Kirby, 25, has scored five goals in this year's competition and said the squad a relishing the prospect of taking on the world's best.
"Obviously we're really excited to be playing against the best team in Europe, we want to be doing that week in, week out," Kirby told Sky Sports News.
"We need to work as hard as we ever have against Lyon because they are the best. But we're all really excited and hopefully we can go there and be a bit lucky as well.
"We have to go there with no fear. We need to go and play our game, we can't go there thinking we've lost the game already because that's not the case.
"We want to show we are one of the top teams in Europe, but there's no denying that they have the best players in the world in their team, so we need to try and counter the opposition and get as many goals as we can and come away with a win."
Chelsea suffered a heart-breaking FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City on Sunday, Magdalena Eriksson's stoppage-time own goal ending Chelsea's double defence.
But with a semi-final against Europe's elite on Sunday, Kirby is targeting a strong performance to bounce back from that disappointment and give the players something to build on in the second leg.
"I want to be playing against the best players," said Kirby. "I want to be scoring goals and getting assists in the Champions League. That's what everyone wants to do at club level.
"We have to stay in the game this Sunday and hopefully get an away goal to bring back to London.
"We really feel the atmosphere when we're at home and it can be quite daunting for an away team."
Chelsea Women's manager Emma Hayes also spoke to Sky Sports News about the Lyon tie, saying these are the matches she has always wanted to be involved with.
"This is what we worked so hard to get towards," said Hayes. "Ever since I came to this football club I wanted regular games against top opponents in semi-finals.
"We've prepared quite some time for this game, I'm certain we'll give it absolutely everything we've got.
"We've got a great spirit, a togetherness, resilience. This is a team every neutral loves to support because we'll fight to the death even in difficult circumstances.
"We know they're the champions of Europe and we're going to suffer, but we have qualities that will make their life difficult too."
