Kirk hoping for increased Leicester City performance levels against Manchester City | OneFootball

Leicester City head coach Willie Kirk says that his side will need to up their performance levels when they face Manchester City this weekend.

The Foxes have improved massively since the Christmas break and the East Midlands club have increased their hopes of remaining in the Barclays Women’s Super League next season in the process.

One of Leicester City’s improved performances came against Manchester City in the FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup. The Cityzens needed a 90th-minute winner to seal a one-goal victory. The two sides meet again at The King Power Stadium on Saturday lunchtime and Leicester City boss Kirk believes that his team will have to take their performance to another level.

“We had a really good performance against them in the Conti Cup but obviously, they scored against us in the last minute,” Kirk said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “I think that might go against us, they won’t take us lightly because we put in a really strong performance but that just means that we have to up our performance as well.

“We were really bare bones last time we played them with two 17-year-olds on the bench but that won’t be the case this weekend. We are in a stronger position, I think we can put in an even better performance and we will see where that takes us.”

With Manchester City’s European qualification hopes very much in limbo, many may feel that the pressure is on Gareth Taylor’s team this weekend. Kirk isn’t focusing too much on the opponent, he wants his side to put the right amount of pressure on themselves.

He said “I have not really thought about it from their perspective, I’m really only focusing on the pressure that we put on ourselves which is to continue to improve our performances. If I think about it, I get that the pressure might be on them; Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United are all in a really strong position and City are chasing them a little bit. I think they were in a similar position last year and they still achieved top three, it might be a little bit more difficult this year.

“Maybe the pressure is on them but we put pressure on ourselves every day to perform on the training pitch and to perform at King Power, especially in front of a home crowd. I think we are focusing on us from that side of things; we want to put enough pressure on us to inspire a good performance but not too much pressure that we debilitate ourselves.”

Leicester City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Manchester City kicks-off at 11.30am on Saturday lunchtime. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.