The 48-year-old coach left the London club this year after a 12-year period in charge that saw the side win the Women’s Super League seven times and the FA Cup five times and she went on to lead USA to win gold at the Paris Olympics.

Though Emma acknowledged this year has been very “special”, it has also been emotional.

She told FourFourTwo magazine: “It’s been a special year, but with a mixture of feelings.

“I was also sad to leave a club I’d been at for 12 years.

“Chelsea are etched in my heart forever – I can’t think about my time there without feeling emotional.

“It’s a club I was involved in building from the bottom up. I’ll always be fond of everyone there, and so proud of everything we did.”

Despite her years of success, Emma admitted she’s unsure she would have stayed at Chelsea if the USA job hadn’t come along.

She said:” I don’t know. I do genuinely feel like I’d given everything I could to Chelsea – I don’t think I could have given another part of myself. I think that was done.

“But I still have to keep working and I want to keep pushing myself. It just felt like it was the right time, the right job.”