Leicester City Women 0 Manchester United Women 2: Who you gonna call?
When you’ve scored two goals in seven games, who you gonna call? If you’re Amandine Miquel then you flick through your phone book for defensive midfielders.
It was Ruby Mace at Villa Park. It was Saori Takarada yesterday for the visit of Manchester United.
Miquel is battling an injury crisis that threatens to undermine her efforts to establish herself as a WSL manager. The list of possible striking options has been decimated by the unavailability of Noemie Mouchon, Lena Petermann, Jutta Rantala, Denny Draper and Shannon O’Brien. You could even, given Miquel’s solution to the problem, add Sam Tierney to that list as someone who has scored goals at WSL level from midfield.
You can’t say the same of Mace or Takarada, albeit from fewer appearances. The idea with Takarada was clear: drop off the United backline and play quick one-twos to bring the pace of Shana Chossenotte and Hannah Cain into play. There were one or two occasions where it almost worked. Generally, though, it posed no threat whatsoever.
Relying on technical quality seems overambitious for this Leicester side and it would surely have been more effective to play as much pace as possible in the front three and knock the ball into space for them to use their speed. It’s a last resort, but that’s where Leicester are at the moment.
The lack of technical quality was exposed in the build-up phase too, with numerous misplaced passes shortly after Janina Leitzig passed the ball out from the back. Sometimes this was due to the pressure United exerted in their press. A lot of the time it wasn’t.
These are the kind of basics that Leicester swiftly have to get right more consistently. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter who you play up front. You’re going to gift goals too regularly to keep up at the other end. The goal drought obviously still has an effect too. At the moment, the first goal conceded feels like game over.
Manchester United scored it on the stroke of half time, Geyse’s cross guided back across Leitzig and into the far corner by the prolific Elisabeth Terland. It had been coming. Foxes left-back Courtney Nevin had failed to close down numerous crosses from Geyse and United’s overlapping full-backs were wreaking havoc on both sides.
By then, Leicester should have been ahead. One fine move had ended with a shot over the bar from Hannah Cain when more care might have ended in an effort on target at least.
And when Yuka Momiki bundled her way into the box on a rare raid forward, the ball fell to Cain who steered it wide from close range. To be charitable to Cain, she had to take it quickly while being closed down on her weaker foot. But cliches are cliches for a reason and these are the chances Leicester have to take.
While Miquel balances her meagre resources, she still has to manage Cain’s own return from long-term injury. So Missy Goodwin came on for the Welsh international in the 66th minute and five minutes later, Deanne Rose replaced Chossenotte.
Rose’s pace is something we’ve talked about before - in such an unthreatening team, it seems bizarre not to use her more often. She troubled the United defence with a couple of direct runs although should have done much better with one shot that flashed across goal and well wide.
As with the men’s side, it feels like there will always be a goal going in at the wrong end at some point in the game and often because of an individual error. It was CJ Bott who presented United’s second to Celine Bizet ten minutes from time to truly kill the game. Miquel immediately called Bott over to the touchline and it would have been interesting to know what was said. “Maybe try not to do that again”?
There are always positives with this Leicester side and the spine of Leitzig, the impressive young Sari Kees, Mace and Momiki all played well. The search for that focal point goes on though, and the presence of Julie Thibaud and Chantelle Swaby on the bench suggested that if Miquel doesn’t want pure pace across the front three then perhaps she should look further back again and select a centre-back. The pick here could be Sophie Howard, with Thibaud or Swaby coming in to partner Kees at the back. It worked for Steve Walsh and Matt Elliott.
Again, desperate times call for measures that we could just as easily be looking at next week and wondering what the thinking was. Leicester are now level on points with bottom-of-the-table Crystal Palace, whose win at the King Power Stadium looks more damaging with every passing week.
And with those passing weeks, it feels more and more like Groundhog Day - especially when you follow both men’s and women’s teams.
Conceding 23 shots in a game and hoping not to lose - where have we seen that before? This isn’t even the first time this calendar year Leicester have lost at home to Manchester United without scoring - it also happened in April when United won 1-0, which was the score when the two teams met in the previous season as well.
There’s something very predictable about Leicester at the moment. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look likely to change soon with a horrible run of fixtures coming up - Manchester City and Chelsea are next up, followed by Tottenham and Liverpool. The latter two sides are only two and four points ahead of Leicester after eight games but the gulf to mid-table looks huge again given current form.
In previous seasons, January signings have bailed out precarious positions. If injured players don’t return soon, can Leicester find another Leitzig or Mace to play up front?
There’s already pressure on the two February fixtures with Everton away and Villa at home before visits to Manchester United and Chelsea at the start of March. To burn through those Palace and West Ham fixtures with no points or goals to show for it feels costly even at this early stage, because there are so many games it’s hard to see any points coming from.
Palace and West Ham are also the two teams locked on points with Leicester at the foot of the table, and the final two fixtures of the campaign. Everton’s controversial shock win in the Merseyside Derby this weekend lifted them off the bottom but they’re only a point ahead of the pack, level with Villa. Spurs are only a point ahead of that pair.
There are lots of teams that can be worse than Leicester and end up occupying the WSL’s only relegation place at the close of play. Sadly, right now we look a strong candidate ourselves.
Liverpool were the dominant force of English football in the 1970s and 1980s. Anfield was their fortress and their longest unbeaten home run of the century came right in the middle of the period between 1978 and 1980.
The Reds went 63 games without defeat at home ahead of the visit of bottom-of-the-table Leicester City for Anfield’s first game of 1981.