‘It’s the beginning’ – London City Lionesses boss Prêcheur reacts to Newcastle United draw | OneFootball

London City Lionesses head coach Jocelyn Prêcheur issued a reminder that the club’s project is only in its infancy following The Pride’s 1-1 draw with Newcastle United at Hayes Lane this afternoon.

The Michele Kang era got fully underway as a new-look London City Lionesses side battled out an opening day draw with an equally as ambitious Newcastle United outfit in Bromley.

Shania Hayles’ 20th-minute goal gave Newcastle United the lead but all of the momentum swung London City Lionesses’ way from that point and a Kosovare Asllani strike salvaged a share of the spoils for the hosts.

Reflecting on his side’s performance on the opening day of the new Barclays Women’s Championship season, London City Lionesses boss Prêcheur gave an honest assessment of the action.

“At the beginning of the game, Newcastle played very well,” Prêcheur said in the post-match media huddle. “It was high intensity from the beginning, pressing high. It was hard for us to put our game in practice and have control of the ball.

“Unfortunately, they scored very quickly but after, we started playing better and used the wide areas more efficiently. That’s one of the key points when we play a team like Newcastle. We found a lot of space out wide to be dangerous.

“We fixed some of the issues at half-time and the beginning of the second half was so much better for us.”

Prêcheur is new to Barclays Women’s Championship football but he was not surprised by Newcastle United’s quality. The Frenchman went on to highlight the fact that The Magpies have made significant progress with their project whereas his own side are very much at day one.

He said “Three or four months ago, I didn’t know a lot about the Championship but I am quite impressed with the intensity. I’m not surprised about the quality of the opponent today; we know about the project at Newcastle and what they are building. They have what we are looking for which is stability and consistency; they have developed a project over three or four years already. We are only two months in; many of the players you saw today arrived five or six weeks ago, so of course, during the game, you saw a lack of consistency.

“For us, it’s the beginning of the journey, the beginning of the project, there’s a long way to go if we want to reach the top but this is our ambition.”

London City Lionesses recorded a club-record attendance for a Barclays Women’s Championship match of 1,781 for this afternoon’s fixture. The Pride enjoyed some really bright spells and Prêcheur wants to entertain the fans even more in the coming months.

He said “I want to thank all of the people that came here today to support us. We need to create everything and a club without fans doesn’t make sense, we play for them. We need to seduce them, convince them to follow us.

“In my opinion as coach, we should start with an attractive way of playing. All of my players need to keep improving but they are working hard, they are very disciplined and I like the mentality that they are showing from the beginning of this project.

“I am very confident that we will improve the quality of our game which will be based on attacking and controlling the ball. We did it well today but we need to be more consistent. When we do it, I’m hoping the fans will enjoy it more and more and want to come back.”

London City Lionesses return to action next Sunday when they travel to Ewood Park to face Blackburn Rovers.