The Blues beat Leicester City 6-0 at Kingsmeadow on Wednesday night off the back of a 7-0 home win over Everton, and the manager was pleased her side addressed one of her requests following the weekend win. She was also able to utilise the full extent of her squad again.

This latest win moves Chelsea to within a point of Sunday’s FA Cup final opponents Manchester United, with one game in hand.

‘We are just happy with the momentum, with the rhythm in the team,’ said Hayes in the wake of seeing off the Foxes.

‘We’re coming into form at the right stage of the season, we’ve got a lot of players in form.

‘That really helps. You make six changes tonight, five the other night and it is seamless because of the work we've done over the whole season to ready all of the players. We're a team that rotates our team more than anyone else but as a result of that, we have more players that are ready.

‘I said the other day we had to have a faster start,’ she continued as she analysed this latest performance.

‘That doesn't always mean goals, that just means that you don't let teams create momentum for themselves and their own chances. That was an improvement and as a result of that we get an early goal. It was a comfortable first-half performance, we controlled the play, switched the pitch well.

‘We lost a little bit of momentum in the second half when you make five changes but we have to prepare for a really big games programme.’

One of the team selection changes she was able to make for this game was giving Sam Kerr a rest on the bench, with fit-again Pernille Harder leading the attack and scoring twice while four other players grabbed a goal apiece.

‘Sam has had to carry the frontline for this team the whole season so to have Pernille come back gives us the luxury of recovering Sam,’ Hayes said.

‘We're not relying on a single goal scorer. Everybody's chipping in now and that's what's been needed.

‘I've always said that the Barcelona second leg is going to give us confidence. It is a shame we did not perform the same way in the home leg as there might have been a different outcome. Trust me, confidence is key and our confidence is in a good place.

‘Right now we're in good form and we're in the best place we’ve probably been in all season.

‘We've always been chasing this whole year. We've always been a game behind or two games behind. It's nice to finally close the gap and now it's about putting Man United under pressure because we're not in the driving seat. We're still in second position.’