Sports Mole previews Sunday’s Women’s Super League clash between Leicester City Women and Crystal Palace Women, including predictions, team news and possible lineups.
Leicester City Women and Crystal Palace Women will both be keen to claim their win of the season when they face off in Sunday’s Women’s Super League contest.
The hosts have taken one point from their first two league matches, while Palace have started their first WSL campaign with consecutive defeats.
Match preview
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Amandine Miquel is still searching for her first win as Leicester boss after failing to win any of her opening three matches in charge.
Miquel began her tenure with a hard-fought 1-1 draw against Liverpool, before her side put up a battling display in last Sunday’s narrow 1-0 defeat against Arsenal.
While there may have been positives to take from those performances, the Foxes would have been disappointed to draw 1-1 with Championship side Bristol City in Wednesday’s Women’s League Cup fixture.
To add to the frustration, Leicester conceded the equaliser in the 80th minute before they missed out on the bonus point with a 2-1 defeat in the penalty shootout.
The Foxes are now looking ahead to a league meeting against newly-promoted Palace, and they may view the fixture as a great opportunity to end a run of five consecutive home defeats in the WSL.
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After winning the Women’s Championship last term, Palace had experienced a difficult start to their first season as a WSL club.
The Eagles were beaten 4-0 in their league opener against Tottenham Hotspur, before they fell to another heavy defeat in their recent WSL clash against reigning champions Chelsea.
Palace managed to restrict Chelsea to just one first-half goal, but they could not stop the Blues from adding six more goals to their tally in a dispiriting second period for Laura Kaminski‘s side.
After two disappointing results, Palace looked set to claim a confidence-boosting clean sheet in Wednesday’s Women’s League Cup meeting with Aston Villa until Kirsty Hanson scored in the 80th minute to break the deadlock.
Katie Robinson then added a second in stoppage time to condemn the Eagles to a 2-0 defeat, leaving them with some soul-searching to do before they attempt to claim their first competitive win over Leicester since September 2019.
Leicester City Women Women’s Super League form:
Leicester City Women form (all competitions):
Crystal Palace Women Women’s Super League form:
Crystal Palace Women form (all competitions):
Team News
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The Foxes are still having to cope without the injured trio of Shannon O’Brien, Hannah Cain and Lena Petermann.
After making changes in midweek, Miquel may decide to revert back to the starting lineup that battled hard in the narrow defeat to Arsenal.
Meanwhile, Palace are unable to call upon Elise Hughes, who is working on her recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
Molly Sharpe is pushing for her first start of the season after playing over half an hour against Chelsea and featuring for the full duration of the midweek cup outing.
Leicester City Women possible starting lineup:
Kop; Bott, Howard, Thibaud, Cayman; Tierney, Mace, Momiki; Rantala, Goodwin, Mouchon
Crystal Palace Women possible starting lineup:
Yanez; Green, Veje, Aspin, Everett; Blanchard, Woodham, Cato; Sharpe, Weerden, Stengel
We say: Leicester City Women 2-1 Crystal Palace Women
Leicester have had to settle for just one point from their opening two games, but we think a meeting against newly-promoted Palace will give them the perfect opportunity to claim all three points, especially as the Eagles have lost all three competitive matches this season.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
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