“I’m playing for free and that’s when I’m in my maximum,” Chloe Kelly said Heavenly From the camp of England this week, full with a beam smile. “I’m having fun.”
The winger enters the international interruption of this month from the two extraordinary performances for Arsenal.
There were many reasons to believe that Kelly would flourish at the club where she advanced as a young man after the January friend’s Movement from Manchester City, but the reality still needed stress testing. Early signs are good.
“We want you to stay,” cheered fans of gunners after Kelly assisted in opening Beth Mead on a 4-0 street of the Crystal palace on the weekend. The fact Kelly and Mead, both the traditional right wings, settled in the same XI starting and combining with good effect is also valuable.
Many pessimists suspected if England’s Euro 2022 hero would find the time of the game – and Spark – she wanted to have been reduced to just 165 minutes of women’s super league football in Man City. Arsenal already had three of the most effective league operators in the rotation – Mead, Mariona Caldentey and Caitlin Foord. But Kelly has witnessed the perfect friend.
Its non -problem transition has been felt like the restoration of the natural order. A player restoring himself within the Arsenal cosmos as if he never left. And with the increased comfort to prove the very public, very messy decision of the city to freeze it was badly wrong.
The 27-year-old, in her main years, is feeling appreciated again. “It really contributes to our training environment,” Renee Slegers recently said for her new recruitment. “She’s very wild. She’s a winner, very competitive. She’s great. We’re very happy with her.”
Something about the turmoil has strengthened Kelly. It’s ‘I told you so’ but it feels a little down it. Indeed, what this block of the last game has proven is the extraordinary quality and skill it offers when given the confidence to express her personality.
The newly named Ball League coach is not shy over attention. She has often been a specialist with a big happened. Which makes the city’s decision to allow it to leave in January and join a direct WSL rival, amid a campaign that included a Knockout phase of the Champions League, even more curious.
Since Kelly’s departure, City has lost the final of the League Cup, it fell back to the WSL race and left Europe. The head of coach Gareth Taylor, whom the attacker fell in his favor, has also been fired. Optics is not great.
It will get some pleasure from looking at the destruction of the city in three separate races – all in Chelsea’s hands – over the past two weeks, but it is within its right to question the reasoning. The first front hit by the city’s injury is left to blaze, looking for everything as strangers, while Kelly has rediscovered its form to play a key role in Arsenal’s progress in Final Four League Champions.
“The football field has always been a fun place for me – from the cages so far. I’m again enjoying it,” she explained from St. George’s Park this week.
Kelly has an average of 3.8 strokes, 5.8 crosses and 2.4 chances of appearance at WSL since its North London crossing. Her game fits the wide, stretched, front -legged style perfectly, and the speed of connection with the new teammates has been just as impressive, caught playing more as a No. 10 after Arsenal blocked the past four palace on Sunday. Find the delicate but simple.
Gunners have since attracted the level with the Chelsea League leaders for scored goals, scoring at least nine more than any other team in 2025. Their XG performance (10.8) is in a high league while creating them goals (of which Kelly has become a regular receiver) is uncomfortable.
Arsenal is once again proving to be a creative force, demonstrated in no small portion of their return calculated to throw Real Madrid out of Europe last week. Forty -five minutes away from an exit, Kelly provided two assists within the first five minutes of a second dramatic half – both of the Pinpoint intersections – up to the arsenal level caught in the tie before Alessia Russ to send the winner.
Kelly’s ability to expel the arm and attract defenders added nuances to every attack. It became a real problem failed to solve it. Such a synergy with England’s peers should be of great benefit for Sarina Wiegman this summer.
And this is the beauty of football, small details that matter. An unexpected opportunity to add a player with rogue talent in January, perhaps, that helps change the course of a season for good.
In three weeks, the eight -time winners of the Lyon Champions League will travel to Emirates to compete the first match of a safe semifinal. Arsenal will have to cause another concern, the one that Kelly is sure will be in the heart of.