Whilst there have still been a handful of one-sided matches during its opening few weeks, it is fair to say that the 2024/25 WSL season could be quite a close-run affair, with just one of the 12 teams sitting on maximum points after three weeks and every side having something on the board.
Outstanding team displays and some noteworthy individual performances, not only from the more experienced players in the division, have been central to that.
Instead, the English top flight is now home to plenty of up-and-coming talent with the potential to go all the way, and it is that that makes it such an enthralling watch.
This tactical analysis will turn to younger players who might not be as well-known.
We will pick out five players currently 23 years old or younger and highlight why they will be worth watching as the season goes on.
The scout report will highlight what they have provided their teams with tactically and, in some cases, why their presence could be vital in their sides’ hopes of achieving their goals.
Georgia Mullett
Not all of the players included in this group are currently available for action, and that is certainly true of the first name on which the analysis will focus.
Georgia Mullett, 16 years old, is a product of the Aston Villa Women Academy and has been picked out by now-former manager Carla Ward as a future star of the English game, and it is not hard to see why that is.
Operating predominantly as a forward, Mullett is unavailable for selection after sustaining an injury during the summer.
Ward’s successor, Robert de Pauw, is not expecting her back on the training ground for a few weeks.
However, she is certainly someone who can make a difference on the field, and it will be interesting to see how her career develops over the years.
Like any attacker, Mullett’s main desire is to score goals and provide a threat to the opposition.
Although she did not score for the senior team last season, she found the net four times in six games for the U21 side.
It is that hunger to find the back of the net that largely dictates her movement around the field; she constantly gets into positions from which she can test the opposition.
In this case, she has identified a gap in the Leicester City Women defensive line between Julie Thibaud and Scotland centre-back Sophie Howard and is moving to use it to her advantage.
However, Mullett is not the only one who has benefitted from her ability to get into advanced spaces.
This ability also allows her team to keep playing forward and maintain their offensive momentum.
In this situation, left-back Maz Pacheco had dribbled the ball up the pitch but had seemingly been forced to pass around the Leicester players in front of her because of the number that they had behind the ball.
The run by Mullett negated that, though, and enabled Pacheco to feed the ball between her opponents and set up a potential shot on goal.
It might not have come to anything on this occasion, with Howard recovering well to prevent her goal from being tested, but there is no doubting Mullett’s intent and the fact that she possesses significant instincts that opponents will need to be wary of whenever she is on the field.
In the modern game, though, forwards are demanded to be good at accessing those open spaces behind the line and holding the play up where needed.
This includes dropping back to receive passes inside the midfield when required, allowing others to then make runs off them, and creating additional passing options.
Mullett has also shown particular strength in this area, registering a 66.7% passing accuracy last season for the senior team. Thus, she is a player that her teammates can depend on to play her part in transitional phases.
This was one occasion when that was apparent, with her moving into the central third to receive the ball from the Netherlands and now-Arsenal Women goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar abandoning her responsibilities inside the final third to ensure that her side retained possession.
It is not necessarily her passing that needs to be highlighted here, though, but the strength with which she manages to keep Liverpool Women captain Niamh Fahey behind her.
As can be seen, she has put her body between the ball and the Republic of Ireland international.
She allowed it to run on to France midfielder Kenza Dali, who can then run forward and has a better chance of breaking behind the Liverpool line because she only had ex-Glasgow City defender Jenna Clark as an obstacle to negotiate.
This graphic clearly shows that Mullett is just as capable of playing a supporting role as she is of being the main target player.
As can be seen, she touched many areas of the pitch last season, and they were not all inside the final third, with just three coming inside the goal area.
Therefore, she is certainly a player who likes to contribute to her side, regardless of where that might require her to position herself.
When you consider all of this, it is clear why, despite being just 16, she has already made a really strong impression at Aston Villa.
She might have only played 90 minutes across six games for the senior side last time out, but that will undoubtedly increase as each campaign goes by, and she is certainly one that fans should keep a very close eye on.
Oriane Jean-François
Mullett is not the only player on this list who is currently making her way back to the pitch after an injury, though. Another is France midfielder Oriane Jean-François.
The new Chelsea Women recruit, who joined the defending champions from PSG Féminine, spent most of last season on the sidelines after incurring an anterior cruciate ligament injury early on in the campaign.
She is now on her way back to full fitness, though, and will play a key role in new head coach Sonia Bompastor’s system once she makes her Kingsmeadow bow.
The former Lyon Féminin coach’s preferred system is a 4-3-3, and to make that work, she needs someone who can sit in the holding midfield role, protect the back line, and connect them with those further up the pitch.
These are things that Jean-François consistently demonstrated at her former side, with PSG’s tactics under now-London City Lionesses head coach Jocelyn Prêcheur not too dissimilar.
She regularly demonstrated for the French side her ability to win the ball back and then shift it into the right areas of the field.
In this match against Saint-Étienne Féminines, though, what needs to be highlighted is that she has not simply sat back and waited for the ball to enter her vicinity.
Instead, she has taken a proactive approach and has moved to meet it early, which catches Saint-Étienne out and leads to Solène Champagnac being unable to control it once it has arrived at her feet.
The next phase of the press saw Switzerland star Ramona Bachmann and club captain Grace Geyoro combine to move the ball back up the field, but there is no doubting the role that Jean-François played in preventing Saint-Étienne from making anything of this opportunity.
This is what made Bompastor so keen to bring her to her new team to fulfil that vital role in her own tactics.
As part of her recovery, Jean-François has featured for Chelsea’s U21 side, with her in the starting XI for the team that defeated Southampton Women’s U21 side 4-0 in September.
The game itself lacked transitional phases, with Southampton choosing to move the ball through the air more directly at times.
Therefore, Jean-François’ ability to break up play was not needed as often.
However, she still demonstrated her ability to disrupt play and protect those behind her.
It is clear here how the backline has spread out to occupy as much of the pitch as possible while Jean-François has positioned herself in front of them.
This game was also one when she did show the other side of her game, with her launching attacks when she could and registering a 96% passing accuracy (seeing 22 of her 23 passes find their intended target).
Therefore, there were clear signs of how well-rounded and effective she is both with and without the ball and just what she will bring to Chelsea’s play once she does get back to full match fitness.
Chelsea will certainly get the best out of her if they leave her in the defensive midfield spaces and give others the task of supporting attacks.
This graphic indicates that she rarely strayed too far forward during her few games last season for PSG and always left herself with an opportunity to track back as soon as her team did lose the ball.
The other thing that should be highlighted here is that she had a good record of not conceding fouls in potentially perilous places around the pitch, with them instead coming higher up and therefore minimising the risk of her side being caught out by direct free kicks.
This doesn’t mean that others around her were as tidy with their challenges, but it will again give Chelsea confidence that she can be the one to fulfil this key role in Bompastor’s game plan.
Indiah-Paige Riley
Jean-François is not the only new arrival in the WSL this season, with another experiencing it for the first time being Indiah-Paige Riley.
The New Zealand forward left PSV Vrouwen in the summer to join league debutants Crystal Palace Women, and the early signs are that she could be a major goal threat for them and someone that they come to rely on as they attempt to stave off an immediate return to the Women’s Championship.
That goal threat was evident from the early stages of the opening game, with Chelsea attempting to play out from the back and goalkeeper Hannah Hampton using her feet where she could.
It is a tactic that holds great risk of conceding possession in cheap circumstances, and this was one occasion when the defending champions did hand the ball to their opponents too easily.
The pass towards Canada full-back Ashley Lawrence did not have enough power, so it allowed Riley to intercept it mid-transit (something that she has done seven times in the opening three matches of the season).
The key thing to note, though, is that Riley is a versatile attacker who brings options to her team’s final third play.
She is capable of feeding the ball into a teammate’s path (as shown by her 75.9% passing accuracy so far) or of shooting herself.
Her seven goals in 19 matches for PSV prove her productivity when in dangerous spaces.
On this occasion, with the angle being favourable, she opted to try her luck and forced Hampton into a strong save.
Chelsea’s comfortable win in the end did hide the fact that Crystal Palace and Riley, in particular, caused them a few issues early on.
However, whilst that offensive threat will be vital to Crystal Palace’s fortunes as the campaign goes on, there are other reasons that head coach Laura Kaminski sought to bring Riley to the team.
One is her pace and awareness of what is going on around her.
It is apparent that she can be an effective defender whenever her team comes under pressure.
This is something that Kaminski really values, with Crystal Palace having a preference for wide players who can be both an attacker and a defender.
Republic of Ireland wide player Izzy Atkinson is an excellent example of that, and the fact that Riley has demonstrated the same instincts indicates that she fits into the same mould.
In this case, she has spotted that Tottenham Hotspur Women were conducting one of their typically fast-paced transitions and that former Real Madrid Femenino midfielder Maite Oroz had sent the ball through for Sweden defender Amanda Nildén to transfer into the middle.
As a result, she has dropped back to block the attempted pass and had extinguished the attack.
With her succeeding in 50% of her defensive duels so far, it is clear that Riley can be just as effective at the back as she is inside the final third.
This graphic highlights her ability to operate in multiple roles.
It demonstrates how she covers a lot of the pitch and can bring different things to the table when needed.
With that in mind, she is undoubtedly someone that Crystal Palace could come to depend upon as the season goes on and who could play a significant role in their attempt to stay above the dotted line.
It could be that she goes down as one of the top flight’s more underrated arrivals.
Olivia Smith
A third young talent who moved to the WSL before the new season is Canada playmaker Olivia Smith, who has been consistently ranked among the best emerging players in the global game.
Capable of operating in either an attacking midfield or a forward role, she has joined Liverpool, who pulled off something of a coup by signing a player who had just had an outstanding campaign for Sporting Lisbon Feminino, scoring 13 goals and providing seven assists.
From her first few matches in the English game, it is clear to see that she will be one of the star names that fans come to enjoy as the season goes on, and Liverpool fans will be no doubt thankful that it was their club who moved for her services.
The thing that makes her an ideal player for manager Matt Beard to have in his ranks is that she fits Liverpool’s tactical profile perfectly, with her capable of operating between the midfield and forward areas and rotating as needed.
In that sense, she is not dissimilar to two of Liverpool’s other midfielders, Wales vice-captain Ceri Holland and Austria’s Marie Höbinger, both of whom are known for their ability to push up the field and to create and score goals.
In this case, though, it is Smith’s pressing ability that has really caught the eye.
She is closing down West Ham United Women defender Shannon Cooke at speed and preventing her from moving the ball out of her half.
Once she has won the ball back and evaded the secondary tackle attempt made by Australia midfielder Katrina Gorry, she needs players to run ahead of her and create passing options, which is where fellow forward Sophie Román Haug comes into the equation.
The Norway international initially held her position here to prevent a gulf from opening up between the forward and midfield lines, which could have been used against them, but now makes a run through the space and allows Liverpool to launch an attack from high up the field.
It was a case of each player understanding their role in this situation.
Still, there is no doubt that Smith was the instigator of the chance through her anticipation and composure on the ball and her ability to move off in either direction with it at her feet.
This has not been the only time that she has held opponents off before finding a teammate ahead of her, and the fact that she has so far registered a 75% passing accuracy shows that moments like this will only become more prevalent as she continues to settle into her new surroundings.
This graphic clearly indicates her ability to win balls in promising areas.
Smith has already made a number of dangerous recoveries (leading to a shot within 20 seconds of the ball being won back) and counterpressing recoveries.
The fact that she has won 75% of her defensive duels also shows how she can defend both on the front foot and when her team is being forced towards their own goal.
With this in mind, she is not a player to leave unguarded, and there is no doubting that her addition could be critical if Liverpool are to build on the positivity created around the club last season.
As with Mullett earlier in the analysis, though, Smith can offer different tactical options, which is another reason to keep an eye on her.
This was apparent from Liverpool’s season opener against Leicester, with her making those same runs into spaces and applying pressure but also seeking to manipulate the opposing rearguard into leaving gaps open whenever she could.
It was a strategy that worked out well for the home team overall, and the Canada international was vital to that.
She noticed a gap ahead of her here and made an arcing run between Belgium’s Janice Cayman and the aforementioned Thibaud to exploit it.
By doing so, she dragged Cayman and Thibaud towards the wing and allowed full-back Lucy Parry (who could also be considered one to watch this season) to make an inverted run after delivering the throw-in.
It might not have led to anything on this occasion, but it was another situation in which Smith provided an indication of how dangerous she can be when in full flow and of why Liverpool were so keen to bring her to the club in the summer.
Naomi Layzell
It is not only those in the midfield and forward areas who have been catching the eye, though.
Defenders also attract positive glances from those watching on from the stands.
One of those is Naomi Layzell, who moved to Manchester City Women from relegated Bristol City Women and is rated among the top young talents in the country.
England manager Sarina Wiegman invited her to train with her senior squad partway through last season.
Whilst she didn’t feature during Manchester City’s opening 2-2 draw against Arsenal, she was handed a place at right-back against Brighton and Hove Albion Women and played for the entirety of the match, putting on a really positive display despite her being a centre-back by trade.
What really stood out about her performance was her awareness and anticipation.
She got up the field on plenty of occasions and used her ability to break up play to make interceptions whenever Brighton tried to play out from the back.
This moment aided her team.
She read Colombia defender Jorelyn Carabalí’s intentions to look for a teammate and positioned herself to intercept the pass towards left-back Poppy Pattinson once the ball was sent in the latter’s direction.
She was helped by the fact that ex-Arsenal player Vivianne Miedema had come across to limit Carabalí’s options here.
However, Layzell still needed to show good timing to win the ball and deserves credit for demonstrating that.
It was also not the only time that she and Pattinson engaged in duels as the match went on.
The fact that Layzell made 10 interceptions and won 45.5% of her defensive duels in that game was one reason that Pattinson, who is generally regarded as one of the WSL’s most attack-minded left-backs, and Brighton as a whole were largely kept at bay.
The other thing she brought was composure and continuity.
She rarely strayed from a position tight to the sideline and ensured that Manchester City had constant width whenever they were in possession.
With that in place, it freed up both Jess Park and another summer addition, Aoba Fujino, to operate in more free-flowing ways and to make a mix of inside runs and attempts to outflank the Brighton back line.
It was certainly evident that they had the confidence to do so because Layzell provided a constant presence on the wing, never allowing them to become too narrow and easy to contain.
Again, it is a case of picking out the finer details of Manchester City’s display, but it shows how well Layzell performed on her debut.
It was undoubtedly a game that demonstrated why head coach Gareth Taylor was so keen to bring her to the Joie Stadium.
It was not only her positioning that stood out, though. She also showed a lot of quality whenever the ball was at her feet.
Throughout the game, she made 65 passes, and 55 of them found their intended targets.
As this graphic shows, though, not all of those were forward.
Instead, Layzell demonstrated a strong awareness of when to take risks and when to be more conservative, with many passes being either sideways or backwards.
There is no doubting that it made for a largely forgettable encounter in the grand scheme of things, but it did ultimately allow Manchester City to be efficient with the ball and provided them with a platform from which they could go on to win the match.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has examined the new WSL season in detail and the way that some teams and players have hit the ground running.
It has focused particularly on younger players who might not have gained as much attention beforehand and shown why they have the potential to become household names as the campaign goes on.
It certainly creates a lot of excitement to see so much talent from that generation featured in the English top flight.
It highlights how well the division is viewed globally in many ways, with so many young players (and experienced ones) feeling that it is the right place for them to continue developing and improving.
Many others could have been included in the list, and another analysis of the same type might well include other names.
That, in many ways, is what makes the WSL so engaging for fans.
There are so many players to enjoy watching on a weekly basis, and the season is certainly shaping up to be one to remember.
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