The England international forward burst onto the scene in 2023-24, and is enjoying an excellent sophomore season under Sonia Bompastor.
When Emma Hayes departed Chelsea last summer after 12 remarkable years at the helm, it was only natural for there to be some trepidation about the club’s next chapter. As Sonia Bompastor arrived from Lyon, where she won the Champions League as a player and a coach, fans sat and wondered whether she would be the right fit. The squad, too, shaped entirely by Hayes, had a new face to impress.
As Aggie Beever-Jones, the 21-year-old academy product who enjoyed her breakout season in Hayes’ final year, pondered what the change could mean, her mother had done some “research”. “She was like, ‘Oh, she’s known for developing young players’,” the forward tells GOAL with a laugh. So far, Bompastor has lived up to that billing, while also having not yet tasted defeat as the Blues’ boss.
Along with youngsters such as Wieke Kaptein and Maika Hamano, Beever-Jones has played a growing role in that success, already surpassing her minutes and starts from last season while having a best-ever goal return well within her sights. She has won high praise from Bompastor and made her first England start back in December, with a place in Sarina Wiegman’s squad for this summer’s European Championship well up-for-grabs.
She has a lot of quality, she is able to score and help the team to possess the ball,” Bompastor told Sky Sports earlier this season. “She just needs to trust herself more sometimes.” It’s a message that is getting through to Beever-Jones as the business end of the season approaches and she looks to produce big moments for a club she admits she still has to “pinch” herself at times to believe she is representing.
Last year was huge for Beever-Jones. After loan spells with Bristol City, in the Championship, and Everton, in the Women’s Super League, she finally got her chance in the first-team at Chelsea, the club she joined aged nine. Despite starting just six league games, the young forward bagged 11 goals, plus two more in the cups, helped the Blues win the Women’s Super League and concluded her season with a first England cap. As a result, the expectation was raised around her, though it was something that she struggled to deal with at first.
I think at the start of this season, I kind of realised what I did last year, if that makes sense, and the achievements I made,” Beever-Jones tells GOAL. “While the whole season was going on, I was almost just engulfed in it. I never really took a step back and thought, ‘Oh, I’ve scored 13 goals for Chelsea’, which I never thought would have happened.
“I think I got to the point at the start of this season where I was in my own head a little bit about it all, going, ‘Oh, I’ve got to match those stats from last year or beat them’. And I had the reputation of the super-sub last year, so every time I wasn’t starting and I came on, I felt that I had to score.
Relieving the pressure
It was a different feeling to the start of the previous season, when Beever-Jones almost had nothing to lose. Of course, there is the pressure that comes with playing for Chelsea and the pressure that anyone representing the club puts on themselves to perform. But she was a young player looking to break through; the expectation was more on the experienced heads around her.
How, then, did she shake that growing weight off her shoulders this year? “I think it was just almost taking a step back and just relieving that pressure,” Beever-Jones says. “I only put the pressure on myself because I knew what I was capable of and sometimes, inevitably, you do overthink some things. For me, scoring the West Ham goal [in January] was nice, because I felt it was almost a bit of, ‘Oh, you still got it’. Sometimes when you get a few games where maybe you haven’t scored or you haven’t had your best performances, to get a goal back is always a nice little pick you up, almost.
Sometimes it is just taking a step back and talking – I have such a great support network around me – and trusting those people, that they can help me out. I’ve been extremely lucky. For me, football is such a confidence sport. I think when you’re confident and you have people that you can rely on that can really help you get out of those little ruts… I’m in a good place now and I think it’s just continuing that, managing my expectations, managing disappointment, in terms of, if I’ve made a mistake, how do I react to that? I think that’s definitely something that I’ve improved on massively and that has helped me out.
I’m in a good place mentally now where it is just making sure I go out onto that pitch and I make the people happy that I need to make happy. I work hard, create things for the team, whether that’s scoring or assisting, which is obviously a great bonus, but for me, it is just playing well. I think that’s the main thing, focusing on my performance, and everything else will fall into place.”
