“It’s just not quite there for Kat at the moment,” Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford said on BBC TV.

“She doesn’t really know, I don’t think, where she is [fitness-wise]. She’s been training of course but until you get into competition and stress the body, you don’t know.

“It’s a good performance under the little that we know about what shape she is currently in.”

Johnson-Thompson achieved the sixth global podium of her career at last year’s World Championships – and her third in as many years since recovering from a devastating Achilles rupture.

But she withdrew from the Commonwealth Games last month to focus on being in shape for the Europeans after battling to be fit following an unspecified injury.

The heptathlon continues later with the shot put and 200m events completing the first day of competition, before the long jump, javelin and 800m take place on Saturday.

Johnson-Thompson will seek to limit her losses in the shot put – typically one of her weakest events – as she trails leader Sulek-Schubert by 141 points, and the podium places by 80.

Ireland’s Kate O’Connor sits in second place after two events of the women’s heptathlon at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham.

The Newry-born 25-year-old claimed gold at the Commonwealth Games and made a good start to her bid for further success on Friday, one point off Poland’s Adrianna Sulek-Schubert who leads with way with 2135 after the morning session.

Germany’s Sophie Weissenberg sits in third on 2074, while Switzerland’s Annik Kalin is a further 20 points back.

O’Connor recorded a personal best in the 100m hurdles, finishing fourth in heat two with a time of 13:30 to come in 11th overall.

The race was won by Lithuania’s Beatrice Juskeviciute with a season best 13:09, ahead of Italy’s Sveva Gerevini and Weissenberg.

In the high jump, O’Connor again produced a personal best of 1.86m which was matched by Sulek-Schubert.

The heptathlon resumes on Friday evening with the shot put at 19:35 BST with the 200m to follow at 20:55.

Andrew Coscoran secured his place in the final of the men’s 1500m, finishing fourth in his heat with a time of 3:41.86, while a disappointed Cathal Doyle lodged an appeal after falling in his heat, yet finished the race.

Both Ireland’s men’s and women’s 4x400m relay teams missed out on a place in their respective finals with the men just one second off the national record.

Fulham‘s Craven Cottage and Brentford‘s Gtech Community Stadium were also considered as Shakhtar explored options for bringing elite-level European football to west London.

However, both have smaller capacities than Stamford Bridge and the proposition of playing Europe’s biggest clubs or even English rivals in London has officials believing they can sell out a larger arena.

The move is intended to connect with some of the 32,000 Ukraine-born residents in the capital, according to the latest Office for National Statistics figures, with about 100,000 people of Ukrainian heritage living in the UK.

The availability of Chelsea‘s stadium follows the club’s 10th-place Premier League finish last season, which left them without European football.

That means there should be no significant scheduling clashes, though Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and Uefa, would need to approve additional fixtures.