Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes has called for the goals to be made smaller in the women’s game.

Hayes, one of the most successful managers, believes women’s football must move away from copying the men’s game.

Smaller nets would help in dealing with the ‘physical differences’ between men and women, according to the 42-year-old.

Hayes is among the leading figures in the women’s game, having won the Super League twice and guided the Blues to the semi-finals of the Champions League.

She was also given an MBE in the 2016 Queens’s Birthday Honours for services to football.

So her thoughts are likely to be taken into consideration.

Hayes believes that the perception of the women’s game is hurt due to a focus on ‘mirroring’ the men’s.

'The goal is just a little bit too big'

“If I took a male player and a female player and I asked them to run 10 yards, more often than not, though that’s changing, the male player would get there quicker than a female player,” she said on BT Sport film State of Play, per the Daily Mail.

“If the same male player and female player were to be in standing positions and both jump, the range for a male is going to be greater than that of a woman. So you think where’s its relevance? 

“Well, first it would be in goalkeeping for example. There is often a criticism about goalkeeping in the women’s game, I would argue that the goal is just a little bit too big, if it was built around our physical differences then we would be talking about great goalkeepers as opposed to exposing them. 

“Rather than mirror everything we take from the men’s game, we have to adapt it to our own sport and our own physical expectations as well as the tactical implications.

“It’s the mind-set that has to change, and once it starts to change, there is a realisation that the sport has its own differences because, more often than not, everyone coming into our game is coming from the men’s game or other sports.”