Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

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Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

Jonathan Morgan says LCFC Women must be more consistent in their performances after Wednesday’s defeat to Manchester City in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.

2021-09-30T12:17:46.116Z

by Sam Jones

Published

30 Sep, 2021

Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

Jonathan Morgan says LCFC Women must be more consistent in their performances after Wednesday’s defeat to Manchester City in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.

Sam Jones

2021-09-30T12:17:46.116Z

Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

Jonathan Morgan says LCFC Women must be more consistent in their performances after Wednesday’s defeat to Manchester City in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.

Sam Jones

2021-09-30T12:17:46.116Z

Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

Jonathan Morgan says LCFC Women must be more consistent in their performances after Wednesday’s defeat to Manchester City in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.

Sam Jones

2021-09-30T12:17:46.116Z

Morgan: Lessons Learned From Cup Exit

Jonathan Morgan says LCFC Women must be more consistent in their performances after Wednesday’s defeat to Manchester City in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.

Sam Jones

2021-09-30T12:17:46.116Z

- LCFC Women exited the rescheduled 2020/21 Vitality Women’s FA Cup at the quarter-final stage- The Foxes were beaten 6-0 by Manchester City at Academy Stadium on Wednesday- Jonathan Morgan was disappointed with the second half after a promising start in Manchester- The manager believes the team must start learning quickly to compete at the highest level

Last season’s rearranged quarter-final tie was all square at the interval, but once Khadija Shaw converted within 60 seconds of the restart, the Citizens produced a ruthless second-half display at Academy Stadium, scoring a further five goals.

While pleased with the way the Foxes set up in the first half, Morgan knows that they must apply themselves better throughout the contest in order to start picking up more positive results.

“First half, we were fantastic,” he told LCFC TV in his post-match interview. “We stuck to the plan, it worked, we caused Man City no end of problems in terms of how to break us down.

“We knew we’d have to concede possession in this game because they are a quality team. Irrespective of them having players playing out of position, they’ve got such a depth of fantastic players.

“We went in at half-time and we highlighted two stats to the girls, one of them being that they had 13 crosses in the first half and we needed to stop those. And then in the second half, we conceded from five crosses.

“After goal one, the girls lost focus and lost shape and that’s something we’ve got to get better at really quickly because we can’t keep conceding goals in quick succession. We need to ride the storm out sometimes and that game could have been a little different. I’m not saying we would have won, but it definitely could have been more respectable if we had stuck to our guns.

“The game isn’t 45 minutes long, it’s 90 minutes and we offer no excuses. We spoke about it just now with the girls, it’s something we’ve got to work on and learn from.”

Five changes were made to the team, with goalkeeper Demi Lambourne handed her first start of the campaign. The shot-stopper recovered from two serious injuries to feature from the start in a competitive match for the first time in 12 months.

Academy graduate Mackenzie Smith, meanwhile, made her full debut after appearing as a substitute in City’s previous two Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixtures and Morgan was delighted to see both of them out on the pitch.

The manager explained: “Kirstie Levell has unfortunately picked up a bit of an injury from the West Ham game so we opted to rest her and see if we can get her back for Sunday. Demi [Lambourne] did fantastically.

“It’s a proud moment to see her come back from two very vicious injuries. She showed so much confidence and I’m just disappointed that maybe we weren’t able to be a little bit stronger for her throughout the game.

“It’s always a proud moment when you’ve got a 16-year-old making her full debut. Macca (Mackenzie Smith) is one of the most professional girls in the squad.

“She’s young but she’s hungry, she learns, she listens, and her energy levels are fantastic. She’s definitely got a bright future ahead of her. We’re proud to have her.”

Focusing on the positives, Morgan believes there are aspects of Wednesday’s performance that can be taken into their return to league action, as Leicester aim to collect their first points of the season. The Foxes welcome Tottenham Hotspur to King Power Stadium on Sunday (2pm BST kick-off).

“The season is still young and we’ve found another way of being difficult to break down,” he added. “It’s just consistency and being mentally tougher. That’s what we’ve got to focus on. This is one of things you get with a young squad.

“We have to grow and develop them, not just physically but mentally as well. We’ll continue to do that and this will be another lesson learned.

“Against West Ham, we just weren’t there, we weren’t at the races. But the disappointing thing about tonight is that we truly were. We were competitive, we were compact, everything we worked on in the couple of days between the games we executed in the first half and that’s what makes this one so much more disappointing than Sunday.

“We definitely have to focus on the fact that we do concede goals quickly and consecutively in the games and it’s something that our girls need to learn very quickly if they are to compete at this level.

“We’ll go back, we’ll let the girls digest tonight. We’ll focus on Sunday now. I think there will be a few changes made based on what we want to do against Spurs, but we’ve just got to make sure now that we do something to kick-start this season.”

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