- LCFC Women beaten 2-1 by West Ham United in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday
- Dagný Brynjarsdóttir scored a second half penalty after a Sophie Howard own goal 20 minutes in
- City forward Hannah Cain netted an injury-time penalty at King Power Stadium
- The Foxes remain two points above Reading heading into the final fixture of the season
After falling to consecutive defeats in the capital, to Arsenal and Chelsea, the Foxes returned home for the last time this season when they welcomed West Ham to Filbert Way.
An early goal for the Hammers, which took an unfortunate deflection off Sophie Howard - who was back in the starting line-up following a slight knock - set the tone in the Midlands, before a Dagný Brynjarsdóttir penalty in the second half sent the visitors on their way to victory.
Talking to LCFC TV after the full-time whistle, the manager was disappointed with the overall performance, and believes that the possibility of league safety may have influenced the players’ minds.
“I feel that the result has overwhelmed us a little bit,” Kirk began. “The players knew that today could have been the day that mathematically means we would've retained our WSL status and I just think that became a little bit too much.
“I think we've overthought it. I don't think we've shown a true reflection of ourselves over what we've done in the last four or five months, especially the last two or three performances at King Power Stadium.
“We haven’t replicated that. We never moved the ball quickly enough. We seemed a yard off it, and I don't think the players have got complacent, but I think possibly the potential of doing what we wanted to do maybe just overwhelmed us.”
The former Everton manager admitted that conceding so early on in such an important game may have knocked Leicester’s confidence, who tried to get themselves back level too quickly, rather than sticking to the game plan.
He added: “I was okay at half-time because I felt we couldn't be as bad as we were in the first half and saying that, when we did play and we moved the ball quick and I felt we created two or three opportunities.
“At times it just looked a little bit desperate, we conceded the goal, and it looked like the players felt we had to equalise within the next 10-15 minutes. You had all that time to play with and we just got a little bit desperate.
“We made some silly decisions on the ball in terms of shots from distance that were never going to trouble a goalkeeper of that quality and even if there wasn't a goalkeeper there, we've never told the players to be hitting shots from 30 yards.
“There were some poor decisions in possession, and we've not really showed up and it's disappointing because we wanted to finish with three straight wins at King Power Stadium.”
City previous two results on home soil both ended in victory: a dramatic late win over bottom-placed Reading before putting four goals past Liverpool. Compared to these games, Sunday’s display was wide of the mark that the manager aimed for.
He will be hoping that, along with his coaching staff, that this issue can be rectified, ahead of the Foxes’ final game of the 2022/23 campaign when they travel to Broadfield Stadium to take on Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday (2:30pm BST kick-off).
“The difference between today and the Liverpool and Reading performances is that we were on the second balls and that's why I think we were just a yard off it,” Kirk continued. “There were a lot of second balls that in the previous two games we were landing on.
“We were keeping the momentum of the game going and we created a lot of chances. We never created many good chances, and we've been hammering the players recently about creating good chances rather than just being happy to create a chance. Don't just throw it in the box, and I think it was probably the quality of chances that we created today, which was a little bit disappointing.”