Leicester City head coach Willie Kirk says that it is important that his side start their latest Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Everton in a positive manner.
The Foxes face the Merseyside club in their first home fixture of the season at The King Power Stadium this afternoon.
Everton lost their opening game of the new season 2-1 to Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend. Leicester City boss Kirk believes that The Blue Girls will aim to make a flying start this afternoon and he wants his own side to put down an early marker.
“We know their strengths and we know the areas that we can exploit,” Kirk said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “There’s not that much that we don’t know about them.
“I think they will be disappointed with their start to the season, I’d have probably backed them to beat Brighton. I’m sure that they will have been disappointed to take nothing at home in the first game.
“They’ll be looking to bounce back, so we will have to make sure that we start the game sharply. I’m sure after a defeat, they will be looking to start well.”
Despite being on zero points and rock bottom of the Barclays Women’s Super League table at Christmas last season, Leicester City preserved their top flight status courtesy of an excellent second half of the season. The club’s fans really helped their side to complete ‘The Great Escape’ and Kirk is hoping for a similar level of strong support at The King Power Stadium this season.
He said “In the second half of last season, they were excellent. It started off with that Brighton game in January, you could feel a real buzz amongst the fans. We had to give them something to create that buzz which was that 3-0 victory. I think they started believing in the team at that point, they were really excited about coming to the next game. The next game was Manchester City which was a decent performance.
“From there, we just kept building. We had the Everton 0-0 which was exciting for a goalless draw and the fans played a massive part in the Liverpool and Reading victories. That late goal against Reading at The King Power, the atmosphere was incredible; there were 4,000 or 5,000 there but it felt like 25,000 with the noise that they made.
“The fans have really bought into the players. It was disappointing because the last time we were there was the West Ham reverse. We really wanted to give the fans safety that day after backing us so well in the previous months.
“I’m sure they’ll come back in numbers. We need them and hopefully, their Sunday afternoons need us.”
Leicester City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Everton kicks-off at 3pm this afternoon. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.
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