Punch and Kirstie: Everton 1 LCFC Women 0 (29 September 2022)
For 92 minutes, Leicester gave Everton as good as they got to come within sniffing distance of their first point of the season. In the 93rd, Kirstie Levell came out to punch clear a free kick with all the deluded confidence of a Conservative MP unveiling their latest economic plan.
The positive take on Leicester’s first three games is that they have been competitive in all of them. They look organised, they’re staying in games and giving themselves a chance.
The problem is: they keep losing. A fortnight in and it feels like their luck is out. They conceded the opening goal of the season from 40 yards out. Last week, they conceded a dodgy penalty after two minutes. On Thursday night, the goalkeeper defied the laws of physics by punching a cross that was going out of play into her own net with the last touch of the game.
Three games, no points, and no Leicester player has scored since February. On the face of it, this is a pretty bad start. In reality, though, this is a decent team that’s seriously down on its luck.
Top marks for effort
None of Leicester’s games so far have been ‘entertaining’ in any sense of the word. But in some ways this is a credit to Lydia Bedford and the team. Leicester are overmatched on paper and lack the experience and match winners on display elsewhere in the WSL.
Yet they are in every game. It’s the fine margins that are hurting them. The games are dull because Leicester are well organised and good at the back on the one hand and, on the other, they cannot score. It was the same again here. The back three of Ashleigh Plumptre, Sophie Howard and, particularly, Sam Tierney restricted Everton to very few chances; Levell was rarely called into action before her moment of madness in the dying stages.
This kind of solidity matched with a blunt attack gives Leicester the vibe of a game promoted team, battling away against the odds. They lack someone with the creativity and composure to unlock top-tier defences. Perhaps Carrie Jones can grow into that player as the season goes on but right now the team is built on graft and effort, which is working - but only up to a point.
The opposition were coming in off the back of a stunning Merseyside Derby win at the weekend but they didn’t look significantly better than Leicester here. Once Leicester got over a sloppy start and pushed up to engage Everton, they began to create openings. Throughout the rest of the game the standard Leicester attack came from winning the ball in the Everton half and breaking into space. In the first half the spare player was Jemma Purfield from left wing back, but she was wasteful from open play - twice choosing an early long shot rather than feeding the strikers - although she was a major threat from set pieces and later forced a good save from Everton debutant, Emily Ramsey.
This was the pattern for the first 70 minutes or so, before Leicester started to tire. The constant running from midfield and up front won the ball back over and over again, and all the opportunities went to waste without creating a genuine chance. By the last quarter of the game you could sense the frustration in the Leicester attack. Every time they got the ball it was like they were training for the US police force: shoot first and ask questions later.
The trouble with Tasha
Despite their attacking miscues, you can see what Leicester are trying to do. Bedford’s style is one that demands a lot of effort, energy, and defensive work from the entire team. The high press only succeeds if you can work together to close down the player in possession and block off her passing lanes. That was an unambiguous success on Thursday night. Leicester’s problem is that the best striker for scoring goals is not really suited to that style of play.
Jones and Shannon O’Brien started up front together again on Merseyside and did an excellent job of harrying Everton’s back line. Defensively and tactically they did a great job. On the ball and going forward, they couldn’t get anything going. They don’t offer any physical presence and both look like they’d be more comfortable playing off a #9 rather than leading the line themselves.
Natasha Flint is the obvious alternative. She came on after 55 minutes at Walton Hall and immediately offered a drastically different threat. With her on the pitch, Leicester have a presence up front, someone to aim for in the box, someone who can hold up the ball.
It’s clear, however, that Bedford does not trust her to keep up the press. One of the features of such a small ground is that you could hear the benches talking to each team throughout the entire game. The last 15 minutes were defined by the soundtrack of Bedford encouraging and coaching Flint to do more defensive work, to track her runner, to get back into position.
Whether it was that specifically or tiredness across the team in general, Everton started to find a lot more space towards the end after Jones and O’Brien had been taken off. It was made even worse when Flint picked up an injury with five minutes to go and Leicester took too long to react and replace the stricken sub. The avalanche of free kicks in dangerous areas in the closing stages were partly because they were effectively playing with ten players as Flint hobbled around.
At risk of making the world’s most obvious point, one own goal since February is not going to get the job done. If Leicester are going to stay up they need to score some goals. Bedford is going to have to find a way of marrying up the excellent team structure with a genuine attacking threat. The next couple of games are tough but the trip to Reading at the end of the October is looming large as a must-win.
Elsewhere in the WSL
Sam Kerr got off the mark for the season as Chelsea beat West Ham in another rearranged game on Wednesday night. Leicester sit 11th, edging above Reading on goal difference but having played a game more.
The WSL is on a break for a couple of weeks now as the League Cup and then an international break take centre stage. Leicester play Blackburn this weekend in the first round of group games in a tournament that follows a slightly manic format, where 22 teams from the WSL and the Championship are drawn into groups, and the top team in each group (plus one runner-up) make it through to the quarter finals. Then Arsenal and Chelsea join at that point, after being given a bye because of European commitments. Got it?
The international break sees the three playoffs to decide the final World Cup spots next summer. Carrie Jones and Josie Green are both in the Wales squad for their semi-final against Bosnia & Herzegovina. The Lionesses, of course, have already qualified, and so are taking on the US at a sold out Wembley next Friday night before travelling to Brighton to play the Czech Republic.
