It's been a tough road for Fishel. The US-born star joined Chelsea in summer of 2023 after having caught the headlines scoring 17 goals in 17 appearances for Mexican side Tigres UANL, becoming the first foreign player to win the Liga MX Golden Boot.

She made an immediate impact at Chelsea too. Fishel found the back of the net in a 2-1 victory on her debut that October against Tottenham in the WSL, heading home from a Niamh Charles cross.

Just four months later, the striker was called to represent her country ahead of the inaugural CONCACAF W Gold Cup, but disaster struck when she tore her ACL while on duty with the US Women's National Team.

That was back in February 2024 and – after 13 months of rehabilitation – she finally made her return. Boss Sonia Bompastor brought Fishel on as a substitute for the final three minutes of Chelsea's win over Manchester City in the Women's Super League on March 23, and suddenly she was back.

Last Sunday, she increased those minutes on the pitch by another 23, replacing Maika Hamano in the 2-2 draw with West Ham at Kingsmeadow.

'It’s amazing,' she beamed after the match when asked how it felt to be back. 'All that work I’ve put in by myself for a little bit over a year.

'My team have been really special giving me help and support in getting back fully on the field, so I just want to contribute any way I can to this team and the success they’ve had so far.'

Fishel has been able to watch her side go from strength to strength as she has gone through her intense recovery process, as they have gone unbeaten in the league, won the League Cup trophy, and progressed to the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and the Champions League.

In that way, she was well-placed to see the West Ham result was not what Chelsea have come to expect under Bompastor.

'I think we started off really strong and we were trying to get the momentum and when you concede, it is just kind of a knock and they get hope,' she continued. 'That’s what Sonia was saying – you don’t want to give them goals because it creates hope for them.

'And then they scored another one and I think we were trying our best to score the last one, but we just weren’t able to do it, so yeah, it was unfortunate.

'I think we have high expectations of ourselves and we want to win every single game, so that was like a loss for us because we want to come and win every game. The fact that we tied means we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and see what we could do better.

'Yeah we haven’t lost yet, we’re technically still undefeated, so we will just keep trying to go for that through the rest of the season.'