London City Lionesses are not like any newly promoted side we’ve seen before. Their significant investment over the summer has led to a promising beginning to their first Women’s Super League (WSL) campaign, sitting in sixth with 15 points. But their final game of 2025 – a narrow defeat away at Leicester City – showed us that there’s work to be done to establish themselves as serious contenders in this league.
How did we get here?
Much has been made of the statement of intent London City made when they won promotion into the WSL – bringing in a quite astonishing 17 players, which included La Masia talent Jana Fernández and French international and former PSG captain Grace Geyoro, whose reported transfer fee of £1.43m is currently the world record.
Leicester, perennial strugglers but nonetheless survivors since they won promotion in 2021, seemingly conspired to make this WSL season as difficult for themselves as possible. Despite achieving their record WSL points tally in 24/25 campaign amidst a horrific injury crisis – a feat which included being the first team that season to take points off Chelsea, in any competition – the decision was made to part ways with manager Amandine Miquel just 11 days before the start of the new season. Prior to that they had signed just three players, and had also released or sold nine players, including defensive talisman Sophie Howard and rising superstar Ruby Mace. Four more deadline day signings brought a blend of experience and promise to the squad, but in harsh reality, could not really compare to the calibre of many of London City’s signings.
According to Soccerdonna, the Michelle Kang-backed outfit’s squad has a market value of €2.45m, while the Foxes’ is worth just €1.15m, the lowest squad value in the league. LCL also have the joint largest squad in the league, along with Chelsea, whereas Leicester have the joint smallest.
With all that in mind, if you’d looked at Leicester vs London City Lionesses purely on paper, you’d give the victory to the latter probably nine times out of ten. On top of the disparity in resources, heading into the game, LCL had five wins from ten, to Leicester’s one.
So, how was it that on a cold but bright day at the King Power Stadium, perennial strugglers Leicester were able to hold the WSL revolutionaries to a 1-0 defeat? And what did it teach us about the state of the LCL project?
Isolated individuals
Although the team was established in 2019, and the core of the players who won promotion remains, questions have been raised about whether the amount of activity in the transfer window would lead to problems with cohesiveness. It’s clear from previous examples that teams must upgrade their squad to bridge the gap to the WSL, but wholesale change can cause disruption. Just 4 of the players who started their final game of the 24/25 season started against Leicester.
There’s no doubt that LCL have bought some world-class players to their squad, and as they showed in the first half of their opening game at the Emirates back in September, their first XI is capable of going toe-to-toe with the league’s best. However, patterns of play and some of their struggles in recent games, particularly against Leicester, show there might not yet be cohesion between these players, or an understanding of how to integrate the attributes of some of the more talented individuals.
Grace Geyoro is, by several measures (least of all her transfer fee) one of the best midfielders in the world. She lived up to that reputation against Leicester, completing 100% of her passes. The trouble is, those passes didn’t really go anywhere. Not one of her 56 perfect passes was a key pass (leading directly to a shot), with the majority completed in London City’s half. At her previous club PSG, Geyoro was averaging around 6 progressive passes per 90, which has dropped to 2 per 90 at London City. Geyoro is, along with centre-back Wassa Sangare, one of the most consistent passers in the squad, but the majority are short, non-progressive passes. It feels as though her attributes as a line breaker, unlocking stubborn blocks like Leicester’s and providing another dimension to London City’s building of attacks, could be better utilised.
As important as she has been to their defence so far this season, full-back Fernàndez has also been pivotal to London City’s attack. She has the second-most shot-creating actions (SCAs), as well as passes and crosses into the penalty area, after captain Kosovare Asllani. She has also registered the third most shots of any full back in the league. The problem is she was far too easy to take out of the game against Leicester from an attacking perspective, dealt with superbly going forwards by Asmita Ale. All five of her attempted dribbles were unsuccessful; she registered just one SCA and zero crosses. Her attacking contribution can be summed up by two extremely speculative shots from range.
Strikers Nikita Parris and Isobel Goodwin started the season in a front two – a strike partnership which felt it could be fruitful, Parris assisting Goodwin on a well-worked goal against Everton back in gameweek 3. More recently, they seem to have switched to Goodwin as a lone striker, as was the case against Leicester. While they pressed as a front 2, in possession, Parris dropped further back, isolating Goodwin at times and forcing LCL into trying to hit the channels for either Goodwin or Freya Godfrey to run into. This was partly down to Leicester’s compactness, but it feels as though putting Parris alongside Goodwin may have enabled them to overload the Leicester defence and cause a few more problems.
Lack of game changers
When Prêcheur turned to his bench in the 62nd minute, shortly after Leicester went ahead, you got the feeling that the players who could most impact the game were already on the pitch. Players like Asllani, Goodwin, Parris, Godfrey, Geyoro and Fernández are all capable of individual moments of brilliance, but the trouble was they’d been unable to find them for over an hour, in part for reasons I’ve already discussed.
The first changes were two pretty much straight swaps – Isa Kardinaal for Elena Linari, getting her first WSL minutes of the season, and Lucia Corrales for Rofiat Imuran. Both did well – Corrales looking particularly bright – but it didn’t feel as though they offered anything particularly different to what we’d already seen. The second was Katie Zelem for Saki Kumagai – perhaps signalling more attacking intent – and Julia Roddar for Godfrey. Both struggled to stamp any real authority on the game.
Leicester on the other hand, depleted though they are in comparison, were able to bring on promising young striker Noemie Mouchon, back from a short period on the sidelines with an ankle injury. Although Mouchon didn’t find the back of the net, her speed and ability to hold up the ball were a constant threat as LCL committed more players forward. Mouchon has scored twice off the bench for the Foxes this season, on one occasion rescuing an important point against Everton. Shannon O’Brien came on in the 75th minute away at West Ham and got a late equaliser. LCL, on the other hand, have not been able to overturn a losing position in WSL, and a player is yet to score off the bench. The only player to score as a substitute in any campaign is Nikita Parris, who starts every league game.
Defensive frailties
One area that exemplifies London City’s struggle for cohesion is their defence. Despite their league position, they have the third worst defence in the WSL. They’ve conceded 21 goals – which is more than Leicester, and the same as bottom-of-the-table Liverpool. They have also made the second-most defensive errors in the league. Discipline is also a problem – they have conceded six penalties, which is the most in the league by some margin.
Lack of cohesion was evident on Leicester’s goal. Asmita Ale runs into space left by Godfrey, who is slow to track back, and centre-back Sangaré has stepped up, leaving Fernandez caught between Ale and O’Brien, leaving both essentially completely unmarked.
Ale is picked out by an exceptional ball from Sam Tierney, and nods it down into the path of O’Brien. Sangaré does well to recover from her position outside of the box to make life difficult for the striker but she manages to keep the ball under her feet and bundle it over the line.
Even before that, the warning signs were there for LCL. Hannah Cain receives the ball in space vacated by Imuran, and has yet more space to run into as Sangaré has once again pushed up.
Linari and Sangaré do well to shepherd her wide, leading to a relatively tame shot right at the gloves of Elene Lete, but had Cain looked up, she might’ve seen Ale, in acres of space left by Fernández and Godfrey.
The need for more communication and understanding was also evident in the single goal they conceded against Brighton. Parris receives the ball in her own half with her back to goal. Saki Kumagai runs ahead of her, perhaps expecting a quick lay-off from Parris, but it doesn’t come.
With Brighton applying pressure, basically everyone has run ahead of her, leaving her no real options to release the ball.
Brighton nick it back and get the goal. Again, Linari’s positioning here raises some questions about defensive responsibilities.
Against a well-drilled team like Leicester with a lot of togetherness and understanding built over years under a collective identity, London City’s nativities are exposed. It’ll take more than a big summer and a few superstars to catapult them into the upper echelons of the top flight of the women’s game. It’ll take time, work, and most importantly, a clear plan.
