A Missed Opportunity, Says Kirk
- LCFC Women were defeated by Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday evening
- Bethany England scored the only goal of the match at Brisbane Road
- The result leaves City bottom of the Barclays Women’s Super League
- Willie Kirk tells LCFC TV that Leicester must learn from their errors
After picking up a hard-fought point against Everton at King Power Stadium only days earlier, the Foxes headed to the capital to face a Spurs side without a win in their previous nine Barclays Women’s Super League outings.
However, under interim management of Vicky Jepson, a single goal from Bethany England was enough to turn the tide, and leave Leicester at the foot of the WSL.
“We’re really disappointed because we came into the game thinking we’d take three points,” Kirk told LCFC TV. “It’s gutting to come away with nothing. The main part of the performance was good, and we were certainly good enough to take something from the game.
“We were a little unfortunate with the goal, it looked like it took a slight deflection, but regardless of that, we should’ve kept England on the outside, and we had enough chances ourselves to put the game out of reach before that happened.
“Any goal against you comes at the wrong time, but sometimes that happens. You miss one at one end and get punished at the other. We just need to make sure those moments go for us in the future.”
The fate of a narrow defeat has been all to familiar this season for City, but the manager is confident that his side will continue to put in the hard yards to force a change in their fortune.
He explained: “This has happened before – earlier in the season at West Ham United, we thought we were the better team and we lost 1-0, so it’s just about turning the luck around in our favour.
“In the second half, both teams were going at it, but it was cagey in the first half with few chances. But there were enough later on in the game for both teams. We’ve got to be more clinical and take more care in the final third. We had good possession in the first half but didn’t do enough with it.
“It frustrating because between the two games (against Everton and Tottenham), we created four or five good chances, and we’re not taking them. They don’t need to all be converted, but we must improve in that aspect, and we’ll keep working at it on the training ground.”
Seven matches remain for the Foxes as they continue to fight to retain their WSL status, and their next chance of redemption will come when they face Aston Villa on Sunday 26 March (2pm GMT kick-off) at Villa Park.
“We’ve got to learn from it,” the 44-year-old admitted. “We need to keep working hard to put these errors right so that we’re prepared for the Villa game in a few weeks.
“We’re still on target for our second block of games. We achieved our target for the first block so I’m not too worried just yet. There’s still two games in this current block, so as tough as it feels tonight, it doesn’t actually change too much, but it was a missed opportunity.”