The Fosse Way

There’s a lot of talk of going back to basics around football at the moment. We’re taking long throw ins, putting a biggun up front and saying ‘maybe stats don’t matter?’ But there’s one stat that will sum up the rest of this match report, besides obviously the score (0-0 for the stats fans). Villa had 5 ‘big chances’ compared to Leicester’s 0 and on the eye test that feels like Opta selling Villa a little short. 

With no goals and even just one yellow card, there wasn’t a lot to learn from this trip to Villa Park. It was another point on the way to safety for both sides and we were reminded of just how good Janina Leitzig is in goal for Leicester City. But how much did we need reminding of that?

Both sides lined up in matching 5-2-1-2 formations, with a focus on wingback play feeding that lone attacking midfielder. This made the gap in quality a little more obvious when you see attacking play centred around a former WSL top scorer, Rachel Daly, in Villa’s case and a well-travelled player in Emily Van Egmond for Leicester.

Heather Payne came in at right back as Janice Cayman switched across to the centre of defence, presumably giving the 37-year-old a break after seemingly running the furthest of everyone in the 5 games previous. This was very ‘away’ football from Leicester. We weren’t pressing Villa’s backline and we were letting them play through the midfield as they pleased, only jumping into action in the defensive third and staunchly keeping our shape. 

We looked set to make this a very difficult day for Villa and a 0-0, or a sneaky 1-0 was always going to be a decent result here against mid-table opposition with some great individual talent. Sam Tierney made a mess of a back pass and had to chase it down herself early on but that didn’t seem to get to her or the rest of the side. We carried on packing the middle of the pitch and possibly think about scoring a goal.

If you’ve read some of my other match reports this season, you’d know I keep banging on about how set pieces feel like a wasted opportunity at the moment. As a team that have long struggled to score in open play, being a set piece danger and getting a slim lead to hold on to is an obvious key to success. But I’m sure that is easier said than done. Along these lines, we saw a nice training ground manoeuvre, although it didn’t quite come off. The ball was passed to feet, from the corner, a few yards outside of the box. With time in a central position it gives a bit of time to get a ball into the box and create a bit of chaos. It’s not the kind of thing you can really use more than once or twice a game, but it’s a sign of a bit of creativity we’ll need to get by and sneak a few goals this season. 

Villa’s attacking play mostly centred around Rachel Daly getting through balls between Leicester’s 3 centre backs and having Ebony Salmon and Chastity Grant chase them down. This is almost entirely where those 5 big chances came from. The best of those chances came in the first half as Salmon received the ball behind Leicester’s back line, but Leitzig was quick off the line to come out and smother any danger. This happened repeatedly and Leitzig got the better of the attacker every single time. 

The defence made full advantage of having 3 centre backs. We saw good, active defending from all of them, but especially Julie Thibaud. They were picking and choosing when to step up and win the ball and mostly getting the job done, knowing they had the cover of another 2 central defenders and Asmita Ale or Payne getting back from the wing back positions as well. 

Later in the game, there was some change of personnel, but the tone and rhythm of the game never really changed. The whole thing felt like the last 15 minutes of a lower mid-table league match and both defences played well, while both sets of attackers failed to quite make an impression.

Frankly, Villa were unfortunate to come away without a goal and a win here. If we had gone 1-0 down, we’d have seen that fighting spirit come out again, but it honestly felt kind of good to come away with a relatively drama-free point.

It’s tight at the bottom of the WSL, but Leicester are sitting in 9th with 5 points after 6 games and West Ham are still rock bottom at 12th without a single point. The WSL is only 22 games and at roughly a third of the way through the season, we look a decent bet to survive.