LCFC Women

Willie Kirk spoke to the media on Thursday afternoon ahead of Leicester’s crunch final day WSL match against Brighton on Saturday.  A win for the Foxes will mean they are guaranteed safety whilst any other result leaves them relying on the Reading not winning.

Kirk started by confirming there are no fresh injuries and Georgia Eaton-Collins is back in the squad.  Ruby Mace is suspended for this match after getting sent off last week against West Ham.

“Everyone is feeling the same sense of frustration” after the loss to the Hammers in a match Leicester dominated Kirk admitted. He continued by saying “it looked a little bit desperate, a little but nervy, it meant we were a yard off things, we took shots from distance which I thought we had managed to eradicate from our game”.

“It was a little bit frustrating we didn’t believe in ourselves a little bit more and play our normal game” remarked the Leicester manager.

On reflection he believes if Reading had beaten Spurs the day before or if the matches had been going on at the same time then Leicester would have won their game.  Kirk believes they “let something external to us dictate our emotions” last weekend.

The Foxes boss said the players have been on it in training during the week and everyone wants to be in the team on Saturday to prove a point.  “We got to the stage where we were proving everybody wrong and then it almost flipped on its head and last week they were almost scared to let people down” noted Kirk. 

He said they want to stay away from the mentality of all they need to do is match Reading’s result to stay in the division.  “We want win the game because for us it would mean beating last years points tally, scoring more goals than last year, climbing a spot more than last year” Kirk carried onto say. He then pointed out that finishing tenth would be a remarkable achievement considering where they were sitting five months ago.

Kirk admitted it has been tough analysing Brighton ahead of the match as they have had a number of different managers and played different styles during the season.  He added that even last weekend they played a style they hadn’t used before, and they have been prepping against two different ways of them setting up.  “The players play better when we focus on us” Kirk said.

The Leicester manager said he doesn’t want his side to be complacent on Saturday, adding ”it is a huge incentive to finish tenth.”

“We want to be history makers, no team has ever turned around a seven point deficit at the bottom in WSL history, we want to be the first team to do that."

Brighton & Hove Albion v Leicester City will be shown live on the FA Player with a 2:30pm (BST) kick-off on Saturday.