Everything about Aggie Beever-Jones is contagious: her vim, her verve, her smile which has yet to depart her face for nine whole minutes, her unswerving commitment to wanting to be better than where she is now.
Where Aggie Beever-Jones is now is good. Better than good, even. At the time of writing, the Chelsea forward has notched eight goals and provided two assists across all competitions this season. When given the chance, she's been scintillating. In November after scoring three goals in three successive games, the 20-year-old earned her a nomination for WSL player of the month.
In February she was invited to train alongside the Lionesses’ senior squad. Continue down this path, and a bid at European qualifiers come summer could be on the horizon.
All of which is jumping the gun, an impulse Beever-Jones neither knows nor entertains. As we speak less than 24 hours after a Chelsea game – in which the game-winning assist was provided by Beever-Jones – the energy buzzes, intimating that she’s not yet over yesterday’s match. To be fair, she rarely gets over these moments.
“My adrenaline, regardless of whatever game it is, will always stay high, if I'm playing or if I'm not playing,” Beever-Jones says. “There's something about it. It keeps you wired almost.”
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“My adrenaline, regardless of whatever game it is, will always stay high, if I'm playing or if I'm not playing,” Beever-Jones says. “There's something about it. It keeps you wired almost.”
Amid a relentless schedule, Beever-Jones has to shift into next gear immediately. It’s a pace she welcomes. Beever-Jones is, by admission, a merciless self-critic, unapologetically picking out flaws in any display, refusing to let one moment define a performance.
Of course there have been moments which arguably warrant definition: scoring her first Chelsea goal; scoring on her first full Chelsea debut; making her Champions League debut; christening her first Stamford Bridge appearance with a goal. They are moments for which a player who has called Chelsea home “longer than I can even remember” become immortalised.
But it’s the art of the performance that enthrals and drives Beever-Jones. Comprehensive and consistent are compliments she craves. Asked if any such performance has warranted them this season, the England international rushes to Paris.
“It was my first start for the Champions League,” she remembers. “I never would’ve thought it would happen. I just remember Emma and I having a chat and I thought, I deserve this moment.
“I just want to express myself and you can go one of two ways doing that. You can go into your shell and not want to try things in case you mess up. But I remember thinking this is my chance to prove myself. I felt I did that quite well.”
Aggie Beever-Jones started for Chelsea against Paris FC in the Champions League (photo by Harriet Lander - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)Against Everton earlier this month, in a match manager Emma Hayes described as a “grind”, Beever-Jones was Chelsea's catalyst, combining for a second successive time with the returned Catarino Macario. The assist was a form of repayment, Macario having bequeathed Beever-Jones a book, the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, on the day of the game.
“We really get on. It’s nice to see it’s showing on the pitch,” Beever-Jones says of the pair’s dynamic as they become increasingly important players to Chelsea’s exhaustive campaign amid swathes of injuries.
“Cat's obviously not been at Chelsea for long, but I feel like I've known her for ages. She's such a lovely girl. You can see how happy we are for her to be back. There’s so much work she's done behind the camera that people doTn't see, with setbacks and what not.
“Cat deserves it more than anything. I felt bad yesterday celebrating, because obviously I was at Everton last season. But I was celebrating so much just for Cat, really, more than anyone.”
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Catarina Macario and Aggie Beever-Jones have become fast friends at Chelsea (Photo by Harriet Lander - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)Beever-Jones is thoughtful without being guarded, confident in her thoughts to let her instinct carry her without being rash. It’s not unlike the footballing version of Beever-Jones. In fact, it’s precisely the footballing version of Beever-Jones.
It’s this version which Hayes has helped unleash this season, and with profoundly fruitful upshots.
“I've never known Chelsea Women without Emma,” Beever-Jones says. “Coming into training with my dad and my mom taking me. It was just always Emma and it has always been Emma.”
On what Hayes’ legacy has been on her as a player, Beever-Jones is profuse. There’s the off-pitch stuff: from women’s health to “God knows, council tax and all that stuff you don’t get taught!” And there’s the on-pitch stuff: Beever-Jones’ decision making, her areas of improvement, her latent talents, how to develop these to the next level.
“If I were to try and sum up Emma’s legacy in one kind of way, it would just be freedom, but within the set structure of Chelsea and what we want,” Beever-Jones says. “She always says to me: ‘Express yourself. You're such a free-willing player.’ She knows I don't like having too many boundaries on myself and she respects that. I obviously respect what they want from me as well. We've got that happy medium.”
KINGSTON UPON THAMES, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 07: Aggie Beever-Jones of Chelsea celebrates scoring her team's third goal during the FA Women's Continental Tyres League Cup Quarter Final match between Chelsea and Sunderland at Kingsmeadow on February 07, 2024 in Kingston upon Thames, England. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images) (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)Beever-Jones is only 20 years old, that time of a footballer’s life when everything is finger-tip length and full of promise. The urge to dub the season thus far as one of breaking out, of shedding any vestiges of wobbly fawn legs and soaring into the ether, is tempting.
In one sense, the narrative works. After two loan spells outside Chelsea’s confines – first with Bristol City and then with Everton – Beever-Jones’ first full season in Chelsea’s senior team had the potential to slip into any temperature: simmering, languishing, showing bursts of technicolour. It’s the latter which feels most apt, not that Jones views her journey through this prism.
“I don't really listen to much of the noise that's going on, but I don't know whether I'd call it a breakout season,” she says. “I mean, some people have said that. But to be fair, my loans at Bristol and Everton were really important to me. I credit a lot of my success to those two seasons, allowing myself to experiment, try new formations.
"Being at Bristol, we were attacking a lot and that helped me work on my attacking game. At Everton, we were defending a lot.
KINGSTON UPON THAMES, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 26: Aggie Beever-Jones of Chelsea celebrates after scoring her team's fifth goal during the Barclays Women´s Super League match between Chelsea FC and Leicester City at Kingsmeadow on November 26, 2023 in Kingston upon Thames, England. (Photo by Harriet Lander - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) (Photo by Harriet Lander - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)“I feel like I got a bit of everything, and it’s more that I've just been able to take my opportunities this year. I credit that back to Denise, Emma and all the staff at Chelsea for understanding my loading, what I need, telling me what I need to do, when I come on the pitch and if I start games, what they want from me.”
She pauses, considers the question for a second longer before adding: “I know some people have called it a breakout season, but I always want to keep my feet on the ground. You never know in football.”
The conversation shifts momentarily to England. Weeks after joining the senior Lionesses’ squad, Beever-Jones’ eyes still sparkle, if nothing more for than how unanticipated it was. The forward recalls being on the pitch with England’s under-23s, having just found the back of the net and feeling the gnaw for more – only to be told by manager Emma Coates her time was up.
“Obviously, I was annoyed but I didn't want to show I was annoyed. I was like, oh damn it. Emma [Coates] said there was a good reason behind it. I was looking at her like: ‘What are you on about? How’s there a good reason for me coming off?’”
LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 18: Aggie Beever-Jones of Chelsea scores their second goal during the Barclays Women´s Super League match between Chelsea FC and Liverpool FC at Stamford Bridge on November 18, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Lee - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) (Photo by Chris Lee - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)Coates eventually divulged that England boss Sarina Wiegman was interested in procuring her services. For Beever-Jones, it was a fever dream, impossible to process in real time. Fellow teammates asked questions she couldn’t answer. Her brain whirred. At the team’s hotel, Wiegman asked for a chat.
“I was like, oh my god this is all coming quite thick now!” Beever-Jones says with a laugh. “We had a good chat and she wanted to invite me into the squad for the game. It was a really surreal experience. It was nice to finally have that conversation with Sarina about certain things I needed to work on. But because I got a taste of it, it just makes me want it more.”
The possibility of seeing Beever-Jones in the England squad in the coming months as the Lionesses battle to defend their European title is hardly far-fetched. The glut of youthful, effervescent talent in England runs deep. Beever-Jones is under no illusions of what’s required to reach the top, not that she’s bogging herself down with too many explicit targets. Her personal targets are more holistic: enjoy her football, focus on the performance, play “with a smile on my face”.
With Chelsea, Beever-Jones allows for explicits.
“We’re Chelsea,” she says. “We said at the start of the season that the games would come thick and fast but the ultimate dream for Chelsea this year is to win everything we can and play good football."
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