Leicester City Women’s manager Willie Kirk believes that hard work trumps luck after completing three months in charge of the club. It is a direct appraisal from the Scot, who took over as leader at the beginning of November after Lydia Bedford stepped down. After being let go by Everton the year before in October, he had been serving as the club’s first director of football for four months. The Foxes had lost every one of their first six league games, much as it did in the club’s inaugural WSL season in 2021/22, although by this stage, they were on a 13-game losing streak spanning two seasons and had not won a league match in nine months.
“We all depend on our performance, and Lydia had a number of positive traits that bode well for her future as a coach and the strategies she was attempting to adopt,” Leicester City Women’s boss Willie Kirk said. “It’s never easy transitioning from club football to national team football and understanding how it operates on a daily basis as opposed to having an intense block of maybe 10 days. That’s a significant adjustment, and I’m not sure if we were able to assist it adequately.”
Kirk has only been in charge of seven games in his first three months because to cup games and postponements. There was an unforeseen five-week hiatus from December 3 to January 11 during which he could start communicating his thoughts to his team. There have been subtle indicators of improvement because he is more than happy with how things are going.
“It’s not like it was just a five-week hiatus when we could concentrate on developing principles alone, but that time was incredibly valuable, even though it may not have been as valuable as it may have appeared from the outside because many games were called off during that period, so we were preparing,” he added. “I consider it fortunate that a few games had to be postponed since it relieved us of the immediate burden of outcomes and gave us some breathing room to concentrate on the wider picture. Since we made the improvements and put the playstyle we desire into place, we’ve been keeping an eye on a few performance measures, and we’re pleased with the way they’re heading.”
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