Pizzas, points targets and key transfers: The inside story of Leicester City’s great escape from the WSL

In mid-January, Leicester City remained bottom of the Women’s Super League without a single point. They completed the WSL’s greatest escape on Saturday afternoon.

It was not a last gasp to avoid relegation on the final day of the season, but the culmination of a six-month turnaround since Willie Kirk replaced Lydia Bedford as manager in November.

After initially appearing to limp towards the WSL winter break like a punctured Formula 1 car trying to return to the pits, the East Midlands club have been given the chance to start from scratch by the month-long break. The club decided to treat the build-up to the second half of the season as pre-season and returned to Belvoir Drive on December 27 – earlier than many clubs had planned – and the message was simply: “Let’s reset”. .

After calculating a points target they believed would ensure safety, based on historical WSL data and projections from previous seasons, Kirk met with the club’s board of directors and outlined a strategic plan to reach that number in the remaining games. The exact point target was never revealed outside the camp, but it was understood to be in the high-teens. Leicester missed their inside target but still stayed up as Kirk’s staff knew they had a fighting chance if they got close.

The club played two closed-door friendlies during the winter break and were expected to beat the visiting American team and West Ham in those secret matches. The plan was to build confidence in a team that had only scored two league goals in the first half of the season.

By Wednesday 17 May, with Leicester not yet safe and their fate in their own hands, Kirk took the team out for pizza at Dough What on King Street in the city centre. The atmosphere was relaxed and cheerful – in stark contrast to the “striped” mood of the camp before Christmas.

“They totally deserved it and they really enjoyed it,” Kirk said of that lunch, joking that it was “an expensive day.” Ahead of facing West Ham in the penultimate game of the season, he added: “I’m really proud of the work the whole club has done, from the support I got in January to make the moves, to the staff and the players believing in the direction we wanted to take them, everyone got involved.”

The January transfer window was crucial as Leicester made five signings. The arrival of 19-year-old English youth representative Ruby Mace, who was on loan from Manchester City, proved to be very important. Mace showed a maturity beyond her years in a deep-lying midfield role as well as a central defender, and her ability to play the ball helped transform Leicester’s confidence in possession.

The real masterpiece in this window turned out to be the loan of German goalkeeper Janine Leitzig from Bayern Munich, who Kirk described as “the best goalkeeper in the WSL”. Leitzig has made more saves than any other goalkeeper in the WSL, despite only arriving in England halfway through the campaign. Australian defender Courtney Nevin has also made a big impact at the back in her 11 league appearances since arriving from Hammarby, helping Kirk’s side keep four clean sheets in the WSL.