Kirk: We’re Creating A Positive Environment
- LCFC Women defeated 1-0 by Manchester City at Pirelli Stadium
- The result left the Foxes eliminated from Group B in the Continental Tyres League Cup
- We had the more clear-cut chances, manager Willie Kirk believes
- Leicester face Tottenham Hotspur at Brisbane Road on Sunday (2pm GMT kick-off)
While the Foxes may have been knocked out of the League Cup on Wednesday by a Manchester side currently experiencing a heavy run of fixtures without defeat, the momentum created since the turn of the year has not dissipated.
Filippa Angeldahl scored the only goal in Burton but the Citizens were held level by Leicester up until the announcement of injury-time, and the manager was happy with the side’s fight against a title-contending outfit.
“You can see the team is disappointed,” Kirk told LCFC TV after the 1-0 loss. “This is a good thing because you never want to be happy in defeat, but what I said to them was that the victory for me was the performance.
“We wanted to make it through to the knockout stages, and after the Sunderland win it was in our hands, and it was still in our hands until the goal.
“I thought the performance was good tonight, considering it was a much-depleted squad, but credit to the girls that played, and we’ll take confidence from the game.
“The players didn’t think they made much progress 30 minutes into the game, but then they finished the half strongly, and that comes from the learning aspect of our games. We had the more clear-cut chances in the first half.
“If you’re going to beat Man City then you’ll have to go through a period of pain, because they possess the ball well. We could’ve won the game, but there's positives from the evening.”
City remain bottom of the Barclays Women’s Super League, but for anyone that has been in attendance for recent performances, the change of direction has been clear to see, and Kirk stated how this is no accident.
“It feels like we’re three weeks into the project, rather than three months,” the former Everton boss explained. “That’s because they came back as a different squad. We made a couple of personal changes and have created a positive environment which you can see with the results and performances.
“Some of their [Man City’s] subs were quite frightening. When you can make 10 changes and still field that sort of team shows the depth that Man City have got, and that’s where we want to get to eventually but that isn’t accomplished overnight.
“They went through their own pain losing big players. But we want to build, and we’ve started an ambitious project, one that the Club is supporting. Of course, it will take us a while to get there but you’re seeing positive steps towards that.”
The Foxes aren't getting too carried away and their manager admits that there is a still a long way to go but is proud of his team for showing the commitment to wanting to change their behaviour.
“Nobody’s kidding themselves, we need to add more quality to the squad,” he continued. “We’ve got the right characters now, and it’s just adding that strength in depth as you could see how lacking we were in that department tonight. It shouldn’t be like that, but we’ve been struggling with injuries, so we need to be realistic, and keep players fit for Sunday.
“If the players apply themselves properly against Tottenham, then we will be disappointed to come away with nothing, that’s for sure.”