At Stamford Bridge, a goal inside five minutes from Sjoeke Nusken and a Guro Reiten penalty had the Blues 2-1 up by half-time – Alba Redondo netted for the visitors.

Mayra Ramirez scored her first goal of the season to restore our two-goal advantage early in the second half, but there was a nervy finish after substitute Linda Caicedo pulled another goal back for Madrid late on.

The win was hard-fought and one that ensured our European campaign started with three points on home soil ahead of next week's visit to FC Twente, who beat Celtic 2-0 in tonight's other Group B encounter.

And while pleased, Bompastor knows improvements are required as we progress through the group stage.

'I'm happy with the result,' the Blues head coach said. 'It's important to start at home with the three points against Real Madrid, the team with the highest ranking after us in the group.

'If you reflect on the performance, I want my teams to manage the game more in terms of the result. When I say manage, it's not about slowing down the game but being smarter.

'When you begin the game with two goals and lead the goal with that difference, it's good to keep that result, especially because I felt we conceded two goals where we should have done better.

'Credit to Real Madrid. They were pushing and were confident in the game in trying to score. They have a good team.

'At the end, I felt a bit like the Aston Villa game [a 1-0 win in the Women's Super League] because I hoped we controlled more of the game. We were a bit nervous about Madrid getting back in it, so it's something we need to work on, but I'm not too worried about that.'

Bompastor also highlighted a lack of intensity in the first half: 'We scored the two goals, but after these two goals we were not working as hard as I wanted the players to work on the pitch, especially, when we had the ball.

'We were walking to get the ball and that's not enough. You have to make sure you put in more high intensity. If you want to possess the ball, you have to run a lot.'

In her post-match press conference, Bompastor confirmed that goalkeeper Hannah Hampton was withdrawn from the starting XI and replaced by Zecira Musovic ahead of kick-off due to illness.

'Hannah felt unwell just before they went out,' our head coach explained. 'She’s now feeling better, she recovered.

'It was a situation that happened right before we went out and we had to manage that. Zecira was ready. We have two really good goalkeepers and she was ready to play.'