Cclay

We really needed to tackle the too few goals, too little creation of goal chances (especially through the middle), too few creative players (who are also competitive markers) last season. It led, again, to too many draws. I know this is known, as Oxtoby has talked about it. We'll see what the Summer brings, I suppose.

As if it was in any doubt who would score for them

It certainly invites parallels with the men's with regard to how 'hands off' the ownership are (It's as if they think throwing a bit of money at it, taking ages to make any decision and letting the 'locals' run things will lead to success, when it, clearly, doesn't).

I think everyone's written off our chances (which is pretty criminal considering it was a one off season for the opportunity to go up). Still, in comparison to the men's season it's been a comparative success

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/14/gary-neville-the-overlap-mark-goldbridge-youtube-football

We binned Barker when she'd stopped scoring goals and had been moved to the left wing. That said, none of the replacements have taken on the job of scoring goals either. It seems like it's as much a coaching problem as it is the players - i.e. some have been fairly prolific goal scorers before we bought them. Hayles, who did score a lot, has dried up and ... largely due to her pace, or lack of it, is painful to watch. It seems Oxtoby is aware where the problem lies. Whether it can be changed, with the current players, is a different issue. Her comments about controlling the game and not blaming the goalkeeper are fair enough (though ignore the fact other teams always cut through us fairly easily due to passing to free players, easily side-stepping / outpacing our players and being more direct).

It seems something has gone wrong but it's root is fairly similar to the men's team, in that it's not quite obvious what our leadership structure is / if it's working (obviously not). When Amanda was here, it seemed as if someone was on top of the woman's team: PIF certainly are not. Hence we can 'drift' for extended periods, seemingly without anyone taking charge and making the big decisions. Our recruitment of players seems as slapdash as the men's.

The trouble is they've thrown relatively big cash (though nowhere near what they could to 'buy' the league - as LCL have done in WSL2 / tried to do in the WSL). As others have said, that moneys been spent (on players and infrastructure) to little effect. Our old players wouldn't live with this division but neither, really, do the new ones. We have been caught out by something I said a long time ago, defenses are much more on top in the WSL / WSL2 and we've not recruited to solve that. We had a lot of luck on the wings in lower divisions but WSL2 defenders eat those crosses for breakfast and we've got no one that can play in the middle (either as a creative midfielder or goal scorer). We could have had any player from the teams that are going to beat us but the trouble seems elsewhere.

I wonder if, in the summer, we will put 2 and 2 together and realise the reason we haven't gone up is due to too many draws (again) as we have no one that can score a goal (or pass to make one). Probably not.

I see we've started out last 10 minutes 'let's play now' 10 minutes earlier than usual.

Hayles & Murphy. Presumable, since Hayles can't run / close down, she is going to stay around the box, where, in the past, she has shown she can do some damage, and Murphy is going to do the running. I can't remember them starting before (at least recently) and it looks like an attempt to address the lack of goal threat.