- LCFC Women’s 1-0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion move the Foxes off the foot of the WSL
- Shannon O’Brien’s expertly-taken finish was the difference at King Power Stadium on Sunday
- O’Brien analysed the victory post-match, describing the feeling of scoring the winning goal
- The team needed to show both sides of their game to come away with three points, she added
In a crucial Barclays FA Women’s Super League encounter, the attacker’s 54th-minute strike broke the deadlock and was decisive in ensuring the three points remained in Leicester, taking the Foxes off the foot of the top-flight table.
O’Brien’s first-ever goal in the WSL sealed a second consecutive home league win, but she was keen to stress that it was very much a team effort, highlighted by the defensive work to preserve back-to-back home shutouts in the league.
The 20-year-old told LCFC TV after full-time: “That’s just the moment you dream of – it’s the moment I’ve been dreaming of. At home, at King Power Stadium, the winning goal, that’s all you want as a player. I don’t care how it goes in, as long as we keep the clean sheet, and we win the game.
“I’m so proud of myself, so proud of the team. That was a massive game that we needed points from, and we stepped up and we delivered. Every single player, even the subs that came on, they had to come into a very high tempo game and just run and work hard for the team and they did that.
“We had to start high, we had to start pressing from the front to allow the backline to take a bit of pressure off them. Even in the last 10-20 minutes when the pressure was on the backline, they dealt with it unbelievably and credit to them because they really kept us in the game.”
The key moment arrived early in the second half, involving an inch-perfect pass from Sam Tierney to send Jess Sigsworth on her way and an equally smart turn and cross to find O’Brien in the box.
Once her neat finish had beaten Megan Walsh, the Filbert Way crowd erupted and maintained their support throughout the 90 minutes to see City over the line.
The Coventry-born forward explained: “I didn’t think she was going to pass it to me! She broke through and I thought: ‘Come on Sigs, please cut it back’, and she did and fair play, it was a good pass. I didn’t even need to look at the goal, I just thought: ‘You know where it is, just get it in’. Luckily it went in.
“I was buzzing after it went in. I can’t describe how I felt. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever heard. I think the crowd again took it to another level. We needed them more than ever today.
“When the goal goes in and when we’ve got to cling on at the end, they didn’t stop all game and credit it to them because this is why we do it, this is why we’re at King Power Stadium, we want to hear them and thank you to them, that’s all we can say.”
The Foxes’ first victory of the year was the perfect way to bounce back from the disappointment of a defeat at Reading and has brought a timely boost to the team’s confidence, O’Brien believes, ahead of another clash this weekend, against Aston Villa at Pirelli Stadium.
“It’s huge,” the former Coventry United star added. “It’s been a big month for us, it’s a month we needed to get points out of and we have done. We carried the momentum from Birmingham into the Reading game.
“The performance there (at Reading), we didn’t quite get that, but we took it another step today and we managed to hold on and get a win, so we can’t ask for much more. We took it from last week into this week and we can only improve.
“We’ve got to take that momentum again and do another job next week against Villa. We believe now that we can do that, so we’ve just got to take it into the week and hopefully do the same.”