Chelsea Women defender Kadeisha Buchanan has suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, manager Sonia Bompastor has confirmed.
Bompastor said the 29-year-old Canada international had suffered the injury in their victory over Liverpool in the Women’s Super League (WSL) on November 10.
The centre-back is now likely to be ruled out of action until the 2025-26 campaign.
“I didn’t want to talk about it before, because we just found out the last results this morning but Kadeisha tore her ACL in the Liverpool game,” Bompastor said after Saturday’s two-goal victory over Manchester City in the WSL.
“I’m really sad and I didn’t want to talk about the situation before the game because I wanted my players to stay focused on the Man City game. But everybody in the club is devastated about the news.
“She was performing very well. She was an important player for us but now this is the situation so we just now are going to support her as much as we can, players, staff, club and yeah she’s strong, she’s okay. She will have surgery and then we have to move on.”
Buchanan becomes the sixth Chelsea Women player to currently be sidelined with an ACL injury.
In September, right-back Jorja Fox — who had been on loan at Crystal Palace — became the second ACL injury in the space of a week for Chelsea following midfielder Sophie Ingle sustaining the injury, with strikers Sam Kerr and Mia Fishel both also out with a similar issue. In December 2023, Chelsea defender Aniek Nouwen also suffered the same injury.
Only the injuries sustained by Buchanan, Kerr and Ingle actually occurred at Chelsea, with Fox’s injuries happening during her spell at Palace, while Fishel was on international duty with the USWNT and Nouwen was with the Netherlands Under-23 squad.
Buchanan has made 54 appearances for Chelsea since joining in 2022 from Lyon, where she won five French Division 1 championships, five Champions Leagues and three Coupe de France trophies.
Internationally, Buchanan helped guide her country to win a gold medal at the Olympics in 2021 and has also been nominated for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award. She has been capped 154 times by her country.
Chelsea return to competitive action against Celtic in the Champions League on November 20.
Buchanan injury a major blow for Chelsea
Kadeisha Buchanan had made an impressive start to the season for Chelsea, paired with Millie Bright at centre-back, so this injury will be a tough pill to swallow. Buchanan had struggled to show the best of herself since she moved to Chelsea from Lyon two seasons ago and there was a sense that under her former manager Sonia Bompastor, she had finally settled.
It is another blow for Bompastor whose side have struggled with injuries since her arrival. She lost veteran midfielder Sophie Ingle to a torn ACL in pre-season as well as left-back Niamh Charles dislocating her shoulder. Lauren James has also been unavailable for a number of weeks. Buchanan’s injury means there are now five players from the Chelsea squad out with an ACL injury including Ingle, Sam Kerr, Mia Fishel and Aniek Nouwen. Loanee Jorja Fox also tore hers with Crystal Palace.
(Top image: Harriet Lander – Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
