Hayes: This is Chelsea. If you want to be mediocre, go somewhere else

You either do what Emma Hayes says or you face getting dropped from the side - even after a 6-0 win.

That’s the stark message the head coach will give to her players on Wednesday when they resume training, having being given two days off after thrashing lowly Birmingham City on Sunday.

Perfectionist Hayes, 42, did not berate her players in the changing room afterwards about what she saw as a team not doing what they should have done - instead opting to do it on the training ground tomorrow.

“We were too passive,” she said. “We did not do enough defensibly, it took us a while to get going.”

Chelsea took a 1-0 lead after two minutes thanks to a Ji So-Yun free kick, but from there it all fell apart for Hayes. She said: “They (the players) know, the game plan - so do it. I ask you to do the game plan, nothing else, don’t do what you want to do, do what I ask you to do.

“That is something I will make clear to the players - do the game plan, we win the game the way that we want to. “I’ll see them on the training pitch tomorrow and address it then.”

Chelsea are top of the WSL1 league, but face tough Everton away on Sunday – Hayes already has that game firmly in her mind and she won’t be shy in dropping underperformers: “I want to see a good performance in training," she said.

"If they want to get in the team against Everton, they need to perform well in training – all of the players, every week.

“We scored good goals (against Birmingham) but we will have to improve on that performance if we are to get anything in next week’s match up at Everton.

“We need to get on the training pitch and get better this is chelsea, if you want to be mediocre, go somewhere else.”

One player sure of her starting place is vice-skipper Millie Bright. The centre-back was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. She scored a beauty and set up Beth England with a stunning long pass for her goal, but it’s her off the ball qualities that Hayes admires most.

She said: “Millie is outstanding in general, I don’t know why she doesn’t play for England on a regular basis.

“For me, she is a leader 100 per cent. She drives, the team in performances, She needs to improve with the ball at her feet, but I’d always want her in the team because of the standards she sets and the goal she scored is no surprise to anyone in our environment because she does that in training - she could be a midfielder, but I wont play her there because I want clean sheets.”

Asked about why she wasn’t happy despite a 6-0 win, she said: “How can you make progress if you are permanently happy - you can’t win championships if you keep patting yourself on the back all the time.”

Hayes was a lot happier to talk about the return to the side of full-back Hannah Blundell after a couple of injuries the last a quad muscle pull she sustained in the league opener against Spurs.

.Blundell came on as a second-half substitute on Sunday.

Hayes said: “We have missed Hannah Blundell, she has been out for a while. We have missed her presence, her personality, that little flighty flight, that goes up and down the line, I’m super happy she’s back.”