It feels like barely a few weeks ago I watched Leicester sink like a stone into WSL 2. Since then we’ve heard talk of the women’s team being sold, no longer playing at the KP or even not being able to put together a team to play this season.
It was a funny old summer; we lost basically our entire attack to Everton, who didn’t manage to score anywhere near enough goals anyway. Janina Leitzig, who’d saved us from losing by even more so often, has gone, and a fair chunk of other players ended up at our play-off opponents, Charlton. Rick Passmoor also seems to have remained in the job in a similar fashion to when your rent doesn’t go up one year, and you realise the landlord has maybe forgotten about you. But after all of that, here we were, in the second game of the season, at home in the KP, and it all feels quite familiar.
The part that didn’t feel quite so familiar was a 4-2 win with plenty of exciting attacking play that left us with a 100% record two games into the season and 2nd in the table behind Sunderland.
There were a few players from last season still remaining, two promising young keepers in Katie Keane and Olivia Clark. Sarah Mayling, Asmita Ale, Missy Goodwin, Heather Payne, Sam Tierney – who remains as captain – and, surprisingly, the world’s most-followed women’s football player, Alisha Lehmann is still around. Before the match, our top scorer was Own Goal, after a jammy 1-0 away win at Sheffield United, so another win here would obviously be great, but it did feel like we needed to show a bit of what this side can do at this level.
Durham are one of the few independent teams left in women’s football, as in not linked to a men’s team. They had a tougher summer than us, almost going entirely out of existence until they were saved at the last minute by the owner of National League North’s South Shields. So with all that, Durham, managed by former Leicester manager Willie Kirk (yes, that one), are the sort of side Leicester should be able to stamp some authority on early in the season.
We started well, putting a lot of pressure on Durham, with 3 corners in the first 5 minutes. We looked lively down the wings and had people actually getting into the box to score, if you can imagine such a thing. Then in the 8th minute, Durham legend Beth Hepple, on her 300th appearance for them. Hello darkness, my old friend. Completely against the run of play, we conceded a goal after losing the ball due to sloppy passing in midfield. While we looked different going forward compared to last season, the problems at the back are all too familiar.
Leicester looked to bounce back and weren’t too cowed by conceding a goal. We ploughed ahead and kept getting corners, but that just gave the feeling that we were going to be looking at a lot of shots and not many goals by the end of the game. Our potential woes were encapsulated not long before, when Araya Dennis went for a cross and booted herself in the standing foot. She fell to the ground, whacked her head, and had to come off due to concussion protocols.
While we were getting forward and doing stuff, it wasn’t just the final pass that was off; the pass before that and the one before were off the mark, and there was no rhythm to the play. There was a definite focus on wing play and loading the box, in contrast to last season’s plan to sit back and have Hannah Cain chase a long ball from the back. There was movement from the players ahead of the ball and passing options other than hoof. This paid off in the 28th minute when Nystrom laid the ball off to Tierney on the right-hand side of the box and was there to arrive at the end of the ball and tuck it away. If we’d gone into half-time at 0-1, it could have been a big hill to climb mentally.
Through the first half, it seemed like Durham could score, but it also felt like we could as well. Just inside first-half added time, using some more direct wing play, Ziu was able to nod in a cross from the left and make it 2-1 at half-time. Bouncing back from an early blow is something this team didn’t do many times last season, and seeing it here is reassuring. Just a few minutes after Ziu’s goal, Asmita Ale stepped up from left back, came inside to the edge of the box and leathered the ball into the top right corner. 3-1 at half time is an incredibly comfortable feeling, so comfortable it’s almost a bit uncomfortable.
We came out for the second half looking strong. We carried on in much the same way, and Durham didn’t seem to have an answer for it. Again, we didn’t look invulnerable, but scoring one more than your opponent is all you need to do here, and after a year of turgid football, it felt good to see goals.
Saying that, Durham struck back with a free kick into our box from deep to make it 3-2. There was some nice footwork from Lucy Watson, who saw her shot deflected into the path of striker Jade Pennock, who was able to thump it home unbothered. The defending from Leicester wasn’t terrible; it was an avoidable goal, but it was mostly the result of good individual play from Durham rather than any real problems on our end.
With 10 minutes to play and a 1-goal margin to keep the win, it did start to feel like the early positivity could drop away for this team. Durham were able to pile forward, tasting blood and had a few good chances. A free kick and a resulting corner caused some issues for us. Olivia Clark was able to bowl the ball all the way out to Alisha Lehmann on the right wing, but the ball was snatched off her toes. A fourth would be very nice here, and it came on the 86th minute when Paulina Nystrom effectively scored another, by knocking a ball across the box that defender Sarah Wilson struggled to get control of and bundled it into her own net.
Finishing 4-2, but feeling closer than the scoreline gives off, this was a proper game of football. Going down was bad, but my hope was that we’d get to see some games happen this season. If we can carry on along these lines this season, that will be fine with me. One thing’s for sure: it will be an awful lot easier to hit my word count.
