Only five years ago Liverpool were at the top of the women’s game having won back-to-back titles but since then they have steadily slipped away from the upper echelons of the Women’s Super League. With the club seemingly paying less attention to its women’s team than before, rivals such as Chelsea and Manchester City have leapfrogged the side that ended Arsenal’s league domination.
The decline of the women’s team came to a head at the start of last season, with the manager, Neil Redfearn, having to rebuild after a player exodus, then leaving after one game in charge, frustrated by the lack of support from the club. In the hour of need Liverpool turned to the development squad manager, Vicky Jepson, Redfearn’s assistant, to step up and take charge of the newly recruited players in an attempt to put things right.
Almost a year on, and as Liverpool prepare to take on Manchester United on Saturday, she says: “I think when things like that happen it either breaks or makes you and it certainly made us, we pulled together.
“I’m a positive person, I can always find a positive in a negative and I think that was an important approach when Neil did depart and there were a lot of heartbroken players in that room, I had to pick them back up, I had to get them focused. I bit off a lot but I’ve enjoyed chewing through the fat and making sure we come out the other end in a better position.”
The World Cup was a big factor in helping inspire the club to take more of an interest in the women’s team. “It was great for our owners to see how much the game has grown with so much interest, 11.7 million tuning in to see the semi-final against the USA,” says Jepson. “That’s good for commercial sponsors to see too. It’s one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, the women’s game, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of it. That’s the biggest help for me to get support to make sure we push on, both financially and in terms of resources.
“My first priority was to put us in a better place as a club because we had kind of drifted away from being ‘one club’.
“Going on the pre-season tour [with the men’s team] was great, the commercial sponsors we’ve got in as well and there’s loads of other things going on behind the scenes that other people don’t see that are positive for our club and that show we will be sustainable and moving in the right direction.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day but we’re making sure we put ourselves on a better platform to go and compete.”
With three losses, against Reading and Spurs in the league and a bruising 3-2 defeat to Sheffield United in the Continental League Cup, Liverpool travel to Leigh for a first WSL game against the club’s old foes Manchester United, who, like Liverpool, are yet to pick up points in the league after close defeats against Manchester City and Arsenal.
“Casey Stoney has done an absolutely fantastic job and I know she’s going to have an incredible career as a manager with what she’s done so far,” says Jepson.
“Obviously, when she steps up against Liverpool I don’t want her to have such a successful journey. The two clubs, the two badges, it doesn’t matter if you’re the women’s or the men’s team, there’s obviously a rivalry. We’re looking forward to it. There’s lots of talk about us being the underdogs but we like that because it means there’s no pressure on us, it’s all on them. But neither team has taken any points so we’re both going to be desperate to get points on the table.”
Getting the team up for this game should not be difficult, but first Jepson has to repair the damage of last weekend, when at 2-1 up with 87 minutes played, they conceded twice to lose 3-2 to Championship opposition.
“It’s tough because when you lose to a team from a league below it does dent your pride a little bit as a group. The main mistake was a lack of game management in controlling our lead,” says Jepson.
The urgent need is to steady the ship, but her ambitions stretch much higher. “I’m quite an impulsive person I want things to be fixed yesterday,” she says of the club’s growth. “That doesn’t always happen in football but I’ll make sure my players stay on track, are focused and enjoy it. You’ve got to enjoy it, we play football, ‘play’ is the key word. But I’m ambitious and I believe that we will be back at the top of the table next year.”
