The Fosse Way

While most of us spent a few weeks sitting down and eating, Leicester were hard at work on and off the pitch, with a slightly different formation on show and a couple of new players; we’re going into a new year as a hopefully new-ish Leicester City.

Away to Spurs at Brisbane Road, there was just an own goal from debutant Ashleigh Neville, against her former side, but plenty of decent football was played. We looked a lot more front-footed than usual and paired that with the old familiar fight and set out our stall for the second half of this season.

The Christmas break saw some changes for City, with Celeste Boureille out with an ACL and stalwart Janice Cayman leaving for PSV. We needed to bring in some reinforcements and it actually got sorted very quickly. Something the higher-ups on the men’s side could take note of. We’ve seen two permanent ins so far, with midfielder Emma Jansson coming in from FC Rosengard and probably our star signing, Ashleigh Neville from Spurs.

Neville brings some serious experience to the backline and is 6 years younger than the departing Cayman, so there’s a good chance she will prove an upgrade to our back line. When you add in loan signing, defender Sarah Mayling from Villa, we’ve plugged any gaps that have opened up over the break through injury or transfers out, so we’ve returned to parity and then have until the start of February to go on and improve.

Going into this game, Leicester were still 7 points ahead of Liverpool in the bottom place relegation play-off place, and we look, touch wood, pretty safe as of now. Rick Passmoor set us up in a 3-4-3 with Mayling and Neville in the wing-back positions, and Asmita Ale moved inside to the left-hand side of the back three. Second choice keeper Olivia Clark also got a start, with Janina Leitzig on the bench, so we’re in the dark about whether that’s a knock for her or not. Sam Tierney was given the captaincy that opened up after Cayman left after a vote from within the squad, and she seems like the obvious choice.

It was a pretty slow and even start, with both sides looking like they were growing back into the rhythm of the WSL. There was a moment when the ball made it out to Mayling on the right wing, and she had plenty of space ahead of her and curved her run inwards to plenty of support in the box. No one could quite get onto it, and the ball landed with Emily van Egmond just inside the box for a long shot, but there were just too many bodies between her and the goal.

Later, Shannon O’Brien jumped on a loose ball between Spurs’ centre halves and had Hannah Cain nearby, but just couldn’t get the ball to her. There were two long-range shots from Neville when she did have better options on, possibly keen to show Spurs what they’re missing. The front three of Cain, O’Brien and van Egmond were pressing hard. We were definitely set up to defend, but it felt like the idea here was to actually go and win a game away. This certainly isn’t as stodgy as some of our other games were in the first half of the season; it felt like the rest and some time on the training ground had done us some good.

The first big chance of the day almost came with a quick one-two that got Signe Gaupset and Olivia Holdt through the gaps in our back three. The last pass was just offside but Clark rushed out to deal with it quickly. This seemed to put a spring in Spurs’ step, though, as within a few minutes they got the opening goal from a corner. The corner swung inwards to the near post, and Clark had followed the flight of the ball and probably had it, but the ball rebounded off Neville and went in. It’s probably the worst thing you can do on your debut for your new club, against your old club, but she’s certainly experienced and tough enough to not let this affect her.

That was the end of the first half, a goal down like usual and still a bit of hope we could come out with a point at least. It’s a strange life, but I’m not hating it.
The first 10 minutes of the second half mostly saw us living on the edge as Spurs’ attackers played tight, one-touch passes between each other and left our back 4 rooted in place as they got around us. There were some good sweeping from Olivia Clark and a few offsides that kept us in the game, but it certainly felt like a harbinger of what’s to come.

Because of that dominance, we were able to find a promising quick break, which ultimately ended up in nothing but Tierney booting the ball into O’Brien’s head. But there was a foul in the build-up, giving us a free kick just off centre and outside the box. Van Egmond went for a quick chip into the box that would have felt like a smart training ground move if it came off, but when it comes to nothing, it feels like a wasted opportunity.

With half an hour left, it really didn’t feel over, a sentence I’ve said almost every time we’ve played this season. I often see comments about what a slog it is to be playing every game, hoping to sneak a 1-1 or a rare 1-0 win. But if your team can’t play well, they must play with grit, and Leicester have that in big yellow bins worth.
Around the 70th minute, Passmoor rolled the dice and swapped Cain for Noemie Mouchon, arguably our most exciting attacking player.

She’s so exciting because she just gets the ball and runs forward. She could sometimes do with getting a pass out more often, but bringing her on for the last 20 minutes to run directly at a defence shocks teams after they have been dealing with our more risk-averse build-up. Not long after coming on, she ran into the box and got off a decent shot with a few defenders around her. It wouldn’t have scored high on the xG, but it’s a show of attacking intent and a shot across the bows that can remind Spurs not to underestimate us and a reminder to ourselves that we do, sometimes, score goals.

15 minutes left and still in search of an equaliser, Mouchon stood up a defender with some clever tricks on the edge of the box and managed to cross the ball into the onrushing O’Brien, who managed to get something onto it but couldn’t scramble it over the goal line. Missy Goodwin took a big hit and looked like she was in quite a bit of pain, but got back up to finish the rest of the game. Spurs had plenty of chances over the rest of the game but nothing that could quite do the damage.

Other than the obvious, glaring negative of an own goal, Neville played well and looks like a leader in this team already. Mayling, in the other wing-back position, also looked very good. In this system, some creativity and fight from the wing-backs is vital, and the more backup we have here, the better. Again, it’s a loss that we came out of looking decent, but in the first half of the season, we sat back against bigger teams and offered nothing going forward, so when we did play other teams of our level, we looked at a loss of what to do when attacking.

With a more front-footed, but still defensively conservative plan today, it may be that when we play West Ham at the end of the month, we could take a huge step towards guaranteeing safety with a win.