The Fosse Way

Another year, another new WSL season for Leicester City Women. But this time, it’s different. Outside of ourselves, there is a shake-up to the structure of the leagues. The WSL will be expanding to 14 teams, so this season, relegation works a little bit differently. Especially pertinent to Leicester is that the team finishing bottom of the table will enter a play-off with the 3rd-placed team from the WSL 2. 

Given the gulf between WSL and WSL 2, if we do finish dead last, that should be a pretty winnable, if incredibly high-pressure game. My emphasis on these new rules tells you a lot about what you need to know ahead of this season and what you can expect to happen going forward.

We’re relegation favourites by some way, with a cluster of West Ham, Brighton and the new fangled London City Lionesses, all equally as likely as each other to finish last, according to the Opta supercomputer. Realistically speaking, winning that relegation play-off is our best bet of survival.

This season is going to be a struggle, and that was the case before the new Director of Football, Lee Billiard, sacked the manager, Amandine Miquel, just 11 days from the start of the season. We had lots of players leaving, including wonderkid Ruby Mace and experienced defender Sophie Howard, but if we can avoid the amount of injuries we had last year and show the same gutsy performances as the back end of last season, maybe we can finish above 12th place. Oh, and also, we have an interim manager, Rick Passmore, and no one is really sure if someone else is going to be appointed or not.

As for United, they aren’t quite part of the elite of women’s football, but they are often challenging for a Champions League place and finished third last season. They have star power in Lionesses Ella Toone and Maya Le Tissier. New signings Jess Park and Fridolina Rolfo are sure to strengthen the squad considerably, especially with Champions League football to play this season.

Leicester set up in a 5-3-2 with Emily van Egmond playing behind a front two of Hannah Cain and Hlin Eiriksdottir. In practice, this ended up more of a flat 5-4-1 with Leicester sitting deep and pressing hard in our defensive third. That aggressive press let holes open up across our back line, with Toone finding it easy to slip balls through again and again.

When we did get the ball, Asmita Ale, at left wing back, was used as an out. She often didn’t get far over the halfway line, a combination of her deep starting position and pressure from United. We didn’t hold on for long, with United’s first goal coming after just 13 minutes. A scruffy move from Melvine Malard on United’s left was kept alive by Elisabeth Terland laying the ball off for Toone to finish low, to the left-hand side of Janina Leitzig from just inside the area. 

Things didn’t get much better from there as United scored another in the 25th minute, after hitting the post through an earlier chance. Terland was found unmarked in the middle of Leicester’s box to head it in from a deep cross by United’s right back, Jayde Riviere. From here, Leicester tried to sit back and absorb pressure, trying not to go in 3-0 down at half-time. They very nearly didn’t manage that, but a goal-line clearance from Julie Thibaud saw it happen. Leicester were sliced open again and again by smart movement pulling defenders out of the back line and United’s clean, incisive passing from midfield.

In the second half, new signing Olivia McLoughlin was brought into the midfield for Shannon O’Brien, presumably to add a bit more energy. Leicester played a little more aggressively, pushing United higher, but that left even more gaps in the midfield than before, seeing United miss multiple easy chances. Whenever we did have the ball, it was often Ale again, out on the left, but usually with only one passing option, making our build-up predictable and easy to shut down. Malard, again completely unmarked, had a chance early in the second half, and went terrifyingly close.

Leicester managed to hang on until the 73rd minute before conceding again. Malard outmuscled Celeste Boureille to head in a cross from United centre-back Dominique Janssen, who found herself with plenty of time after pushing up into the left wing. Just after that, Leicester had their one half-chance of the game, a penalty box scramble from a free kick that resulted in a Nelly Las shot after a few blocked attempts. It forced a save from Phallon Tullis-Joyce in United’s goal, and that’s worth something at least.

After more and more missed chances, one involving the ball being picked up from a confused cluster of Leicester defenders on the edge of our box, Malard found herself with tons of space and time to curl in a shot from just outside the box in the 87th minute.

United are one of the best teams in the league, and it wasn’t an easy start, but neither was this a promising start. We barely had the ball, we barely had any chances, we barely even had any coherent forward passing moves. United had 19 shots on goal; you don’t even need to compare that to our 4 to feel like that’s a lot. 

There’s likely a new manager to come in, easier games than this and a squad with a few new players to gel over the next few weeks. If we’re aiming for that coveted 11th-place finish, hopefully we won’t be cut adrift by the time we get it together.