Morgan: We’ll Savour The Big Tests
- Jonathan Morgan gives his reaction after learning LCFC Women's Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture list
- The full schedule for the 2021/22 season was announced on Friday morning, with Aston Villa away up first for the Foxes
- The LCFC Women manager is looking forward to the short trip across the Midlands for Leicester’s opener
- He also speaks about the prospect of facing some of the country's best teams and how they plan to compete
Generating excitement among players, staff and fans alike, the full schedule for the 2021/22 campaign was released on Friday morning, as the start of the season draws ever closer.
The opening match on the weekend of 3-5 September will see the Foxes travel to play Aston Villa in a Midlands derby – and the home side will have a new manager in the dugout following the appointment of Carla Ward.
Giving his immediate reaction to the news, the LCFC Women manager sees the fixture announcement as extra motivation to work hard during pre-season and ensure the team are fully prepared for the task ahead.
“It becomes that little bit more real for us now as a WSL team,” Morgan, who signed a new contract on Thursday, told LCFC.com. “It’s great to see the fixtures and see who we’ve got. We’re just hoping that we can get off to a strong start.
“We think they’re good fixtures, but at the same time we know they are going to be very competitive fixtures and hopefully everything we do in pre-season now is leading to this moment.
“To start against Villa, it’s obviously a derby, hopefully with spectators in, it will have a great atmosphere from that point of view.
“Carla Ward has come in and she’s going to stamp her style and her authority on the team, which will probably be something completely different to what we expect Villa to do from last season.
“It’s nice to have a Midlands derby, it’s nice to start the season with a game that we think is going to be incredibly competitive and already I know full well that our girls are massively up for this game.
“There’s a lot of players that know each other, there’s a lot of crossovers between the two clubs so there’s that little bit of extra sporting rivalry on the line there and people want the bragging rights of the Midlands.”
City’s first six fixtures also include back-to-back encounters with last season’s top two sides – Chelsea and Manchester City – while their first home fixture will be against Manchester United on 10-12 September, another team consistently placed in the top four during the last two years.
But rather than be overawed by their illustrious opponents, Morgan is hoping to instil a confidence in the squad that will allow them to compete against the very best the division has to offer.
He continued: “To play those teams, Chelsea for example, Emma [Hayes] has just got them to the Champions League final last season, and for us to come up against some of the best players in the world and some of the best coaches in the world, tactically, will be fantastic for us.
“It’s massively exciting in the sense that it’s an unknown. In my time at Leicester, we’ve never played Chelsea and it’s an unknown to see how we can do in a competitive fixture against these types of teams.
“We will treat every game the same. For me, it’s not about putting an extra pressure on any given game. It’s about treating each team equally and not fearing any of those teams but respecting all of the teams because they all have quality in the WSL.
“I’m not going to put any of them on a pedestal, either, because we want to make sure we come in and play our best football and that’s something that I’ve been preaching back to the girls.
“We know that these are good teams, but we know that we’re a good team as well and if we get our style out and we play the football that we’re trying to play and work on in pre-season, we’ll also be a very, very difficult team to beat.”