London City Lionesses are a club who do things differently and, backed by US billionaire Michele Kang, they are not shy to disrupt the current order.<\/p>\n
They are an independent women’s football club who have spent big in the transfer window and agreed a record-breaking shirt deal with Nike believed to be worth more than \u00a33m a year.<\/p>\n
They have built their own training facility in Kent and persuaded superstars such as Alexia Putellas to join in the summer.<\/p>\n
Spain international Putellas showcased her latest Ballon d’Or trophy – the third of her career – before kick-off on Sunday.<\/p>\n
London City Lionesses are clearly no minnows, but even a squad full of superstars needs time to gel.<\/p>\n
It was for this reason that people doubted whether they were ready this season to qualify for the Champions League and break the WSL’s traditional top three.<\/p>\n
But on Sunday’s showing, they are not as far off as people thought.<\/p>\n
Manager Eder Maestre said the team’s performances are already at the level they want but results have not always shown that and they still have work to do.<\/p>\n
“That’s why it’s a very frustrating situation. We were speaking a lot about respecting the identity and it doesn’t matter the team that we were facing,” the Spaniard said. <\/p>\n
“The next step in that project was showing everybody that we can perform, while respecting that identity that we are trying to build on.<\/p>\n
“That’s why it’s doubly frustrating, because I think the result was not the one we deserve. Manchester City are more mature. <\/p>\n
“They are more used to it. When you have this consistency and you are very used to playing these kinds of games, maybe you have more experience. <\/p>\n
“That’s why we have extra nervousness in the moments that we need to be more clinical.”<\/p>\n
Where London City fell was where Manchester City stood tall.<\/p>\n
Moments of brilliance by world-class players Shaw and Hemp delivered the goods and when London City’s pressure grew, so too did Manchester City’s resilience.<\/p>\n
It is that consistency across 90 minutes, and the season as a whole, that Manchester City manager Andree Jeglertz believes will demonstrate the difference.<\/p>\n
“They are a very good team and they really showed the highest level,” said Jeglertz.<\/p>\n
“What it means to be at the top of this league, is playing week after week, and at the same level – and finding different levels to win.<\/p>\n
“That is what we have created. That’s what everybody who wants to win something needs to be able to do. To contest, you need to compete for the whole season.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London City Lionesses are a club who do things differently and, backed by US billionaire Michele Kang, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-671984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}