Whilst the new Women’s Championship and Women’s National League seasons are already well underway, fans of the WSL have needed to be a little more patient as their teams enjoy some additional time off following the World Cup and the recent international break. However, it turned out to be well worth the wait, with no games disappointing and there being plenty to talk about up and down the country.
Whilst Liverpool Women’s win at the Emirates Stadium was perhaps the standout result, given that it was their first away league victory in three and a half years, the game that produced the most goals was the one that took place at Ashton Gate, with newly promoted Bristol City Women hosting fellow pre-season relegation candidates Leicester City Women on their return to the top flight.
In the end, it was the visitors who took all three points, but it was the manner of their win that got people talking. This tactical analysis will examine why they were able to perform such a dominant performance to leave them sitting at the top of the tree after matchday one.
Lineups
Bristol City Women head coach Lauren Smith seemingly has no intention of altering the structure that took her side to the second-tier title last time. So it was no surprise to see the newcomers set up with wing-backs as they tried to give themselves the ability to attack with numbers and to occupy as much territory as possible whenever they were on the back foot.
However, what Smith did do was to hand starts to some of her new signings, with former London City Lionesses captain Amy Rodgers, ex-Brighton and Hove Albion Women midfielder Megan Connolly (who has recently been named as the new team captain), Wales forward Carrie Jones and Danish striker Amalie Thestrup all handed places in the starting lineup, whilst Satara Murray was also included after her year in the NWSL with Racing Louisville. Brooke Aspin, who starred on Bristol’s run to the title last season before sealing a move to Chelsea Women and a return on loan, was also named, taking her place in the back three alongside Murray and Naomi Layzell.
Smith’s counterpart at Leicester City Women, Willie Kirk, similarly handed starts to some of his new arrivals, with German goalkeeper Janina Leitzig and Australia left-back Courtney Nevin featuring after making their loan moves permanent over the summer. Fellow summer arrivals Julie Thibaud, Aimee Palmer (who was facing the club she left last summer), Lena Petermann and Janice Cayman were also included, whilst Missy Goodwin and Shannon O’Brien were given the nod on the wings as the club tried to ensure that they began the new campaign just as they ended the last one.
Fluid team structure
When looking back at Leicester City Women’s remarkable escape from relegation last season, one thing that they did so well was to use the wings, with those positioned on either side of the field playing a central role in everything that they did well, both in terms of shifting the ball into spaces and in stretching opposing defensive lines out.
It was, therefore, no surprise to see them continue to play with as much width as possible, but what was clear from this first game of the 2023/24 campaign was that Kirk had taken things to a new level. To explain, whilst Goodwin and O’Brien were still in those areas of the field and performing the same roles, there were many occasions when Leicester had two or three players in those areas, as is the case here.
This meant that triangles such as this one were present in a lot of their attacking play, and they were made possible by the full-backs progressing up the field and the midfielders drifting out, but this particular situation has former Bordeaux Féminines centre-back Thibaud on the ball in the half-space whilst Goodwin and Aileen Whelan are outside her.
This is where the positional rotations and fluidity comes in, with players starting in set roles but having the freedom to move around and affect the game in any way they can. It was almost as if Kirk was employing the principles of Johan Cruyff’s famous Total Football tactics, with so many players on the field for them capable of playing in almost every role possible.
The fact that there were so many players operating in the wide channels also helped to liberate Goodwin and O’Brien in that they were not restricted to simply holding the width and could instead cut inside and link up with those in the middle as much as possible, and this was another key aspect of Leicester’s play at the end of last season, and so was another important detail that was likely to be present this time around.
In this game, they needed to be able to play almost as inverted forwards at times, as one thing that Leicester didn’t quite get right was the connection between Petermann and the rest of the team. The aim before the match was clearly to try and move the ball into the German striker’s path as much as possible in order to help them create constant goalscoring opportunities, but the reality saw them struggle to find her, meaning that their positive build-up play and fluid rotations often went unrewarded.
On this occasion, O’Brien was able to score once she had moved into the middle, and so that shows not only how dangerous she is when in these areas of the pitch but also how she and Goodwin’s ability to play more centrally negated the issues that Leicester had in the final third for large parts of the match.
It wasn’t only in attack that Leicester demonstrated a fluid approach to proceedings, though, with their defensive line also showing signs of players working together and moving between roles as they tried to make themselves harder to break down than they were last season.
The most obvious way that they showed this was when Bristol managed to find a way into their half of the field, as the Leicester full-backs were tasked with leading the press and the others were expected to tuck in behind them and to ensure that there were no easy paths into the space behind the player moving forwards, should that initial press not lead to anything.
In this case, Nevin led the press, with Bristol attacking up the nearside of the field. It is immediately apparent how Scotland defender Sophie Howard, Thibaud, and Cayman have all drifted over to help her out, but then the roles change as soon as the ball is passed across the field, with Cayman moving towards it and Nevin slotting in.
Ultimately, as well as showing good organisation and teamwork, this allowed Leicester to put into practice something that Kirk has demanded of them this season, which is to win the ball back as high up the field as possible and not allow opponents to gain too much territory whenever they are starting to look like fashioning a shot on goal. Against Bristol, it primarily worked, which will give the players a lot of confidence that they can play this way and get the results they want from it.
Second half changes
As mentioned earlier in the analysis, though, Leicester City Women were struggling to make the most of all of this positivity when it came to the final pass towards the goal area, with the link between Petermann and the rest of the team often being broken by Bristol City Women’s defensive efforts, and so there is no doubt that Leicester would have had some frustrations when going in at the break.
The problem really was that Leicester didn’t quite have the right players in the correct positions in advanced areas, with Palmer deployed in front of the defensive line whilst Sam Tierney and Whelan played ahead of her. Whilst Whelan has in a previous life been an attacking playmaker and someone who can make runs into the box, she has evolved into more of a box-to-box player since swapping Brighton for Leicester last summer, and Tierney and Palmer are both defensive or ball-playing midfielders by trade.
As a result, they didn’t have the confidence that an attacking midfielder might have when in dangerous areas, and so chances like this one, which sees Tierney and Whelan trying to find a way through the Bristol rearguard, were not taken, with Whelan sending a tame shot towards goalkeeper Fran Bentley here and keeping Bristol in the game.
This was something that Kirk clearly noticed, as he introduced another of his new signings at the break in Finland forward Jutta Rantala, who replaced Palmer and instantly made a big difference to the way Leicester played. With her on the field, Tierney could drop back to get into the areas where she is at her best, whilst Whelan was no longer relied upon as much to provide the link between the striker and the midfield, and that gave Leicester a much better balance and feel on the pitch and led to them scoring three times in quick succession early in the second half.
As is shown here, Rantala is a forward-thinking player who bonded well with those ahead of her, and her desire to look for gaps and exploit them as quickly as possible meant that more balls were played into dangerous positions for those in the forward line to get on the end of. In this case, the Finnish player had Petermann and O’Brien as options and opted for the latter, sending the ball between Aspin and wing-back Ffion Morgan. It was moments like this that showed how Leicester would be a very different team with her involved in things and that Bristol would need to find a way of containing her if they were to have any hope of staying in the game.
However, they didn’t manage to do that, as Kirk made further changes to ensure that Rantala had as much space as possible on the field to control the ball and affect the game. Two of those changes saw Canada international Deanne Rose, another summer arrival following her departure from relegated Reading Women, and Wales forward Hannah Cain come off the bench. They formed a duo at the top of the field that could negate Bristol’s defensive efforts and make it even easier for Rantala to link the play and get into the areas where she is most threatening.
The critical thing about Rose and Cain is that, whilst both can and have played through the middle, neither is a striker by trade. So their arrival again allowed Leicester to play with a degree of fluidity in the final third as both would move around and would bring others into the game rather than simply staying in the central role. In this case, that led to Rose making a decoy run as soon as Whelan had sent the ball into the middle, taking all three of Murray, Aspin and Powell away from the ball and allowing Rantala to make a delayed run and score their fourth goal of the game.
The fact that Leicester could make this type of change also highlights how there is now a distinct strength in depth at the club, with Kirk bringing in different kinds of players and giving himself alternative solutions to any problems that he comes across. That again shows good planning and will give their fans confidence in his methods, and it is another reason that they can be quietly buoyant about having a really positive campaign.
Defensive question marks
This is not to say, though, that Leicester City Women are the finished article because, for all of the positivity around their build-up play and the success that their second-half changes brought, there are still aspects of their play that are not quite at the same level, and it is mainly when they don’t have the ball that there are still a few remnants of last season’s issues on show.
The addition of Thibaud shows that Kirk wants his side to be a lot more proactive when they have the ball and to try and start attacks as quickly as possible, with the French player known for her ball-playing abilities. As a result, it was common to see her moving forward to make long passes during the first half, with this heatmap showing how far up the field she positioned herself during the game.
When she did progress up the field, Howard protected the backfield, which was a shape that worked well for them. However, as soon as they lost the ball, Thibaud didn’t track back as quickly as she needed to. Howard was often left on her own against key Bristol City Women attackers, which led to several problems and the home side’s first goal, which came when former Manchester United Women winger Jones was able to control the ball and shoot through a gap that should not have been available for her to use.
Therefore, whilst Thibaud had shown that she could offer a lot to her new side this season, it was clear that something needed to be altered to prevent Leicester from conceding easy opportunities. Kirk felt that the best person for the job was ex-Tottenham Hotspur Women midfielder Josie Green, and it proved to be the right call as she both offered the same progressive presence as Thibaud but also tracked back with more desire and so shored up the back line as soon as Leicester lost the ball.
It is unfair to single out Thibaud, though, because the whole defensive side of the team at times lost concentration and made simple mistakes. It was particularly evident that they wanted to play out from the back and use Leitzig as an extra defender but didn’t quite have the speed and decisiveness required to make it work to its full effect.
Bristol quickly locked on to this, with their front two of former Leicester loanee Jones and ex-Liverpool and West Ham United Women forward Thestrup working together to apply pressure and force Leicester into making passes earlier than they would have liked to. That meant that players were not often ready for the ball to come to them, as Tierney wasn’t when Leitzig passed through the gap and in her direction.
As a result, the ball briefly went loose, and Bristol substitute Emily Syme was able to close Tierney down; this could have led to a shot on goal were it not for the quick reactions of Tierney to regain possession and to move the ball into open space. However, there were plenty of occasions when Leicester were not so fortunate, and this is definitely something that they will need to keep working on if they do want to persevere with integrating it into their tactics.
To their credit, they did try to fix this by bringing on CJ Bott midway through the second half, with the New Zealand international slotting in at right-back and giving Cayman more licence to push up the field, and that did lead to Leicester playing with a better structure out of possession and so not being as easy to press and to break down. In this case, Jones has not been able to shoot at goal the same way as she did during the first half due to the same gaps not being open, so she is forced to shift the ball wide towards Thestrup, who sees her effort blocked by Nevin.
However, despite this, the fact remains that Bristol were able to score twice in this match (one from Jones and one a penalty from Thestrup), and that shows that Leicester are still a team that can be broken down and that are not quite there yet when it comes to their work without the ball. So, there are still things on Kirk’s to-do list that need to be addressed if his team are to avoid another basement battle and realise their true potential.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has looked in detail at the match between Bristol City Women and Leicester City Women on the opening weekend of the new WSL season, pointing out where Leicester caused their hosts problems and also where they still need to improve if they are to convert their positive start to the campaign into a solid league position when May comes along.
Whilst the analysis has focused on the victors, there should be a word given to Bristol because they will be disappointed with the result and how they conceded the goals; they should be pleased that they worked hard and never gave up for the whole 90 minutes. Jones and Murray, in particular, looked really sharp around the field, so there are many positives for them to take in their next game. It is worth remembering that this was only the first of 22 league matches this season; there is time yet for them to get the results they are looking for and start turning some of these performances into points.
Their next game sees them travel to Brisbane Road to face Tottenham, which will be a tough assignment given that Robert Vilahamn’s side also lost on the opening day, but which they will once again fancy their chances in, whilst Leicester will have their first home game of the season when Kirk’s former team Everton, who also tasted defeat at the weekend, visit the King Power Stadium.
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