After a stumbling 2024-25 and following the sale of rising star forward Olivia Smith to Arsenal, Liverpool Women entered the new season to a mix of skepticism and muted expectations, a part of the club many fans have come to believe owners Fenway Sports Group have no real interest in seeing succeed.
Do the bare minimum, keep it ticking over, exist. Never mind winning things or even to aspiring to it. But simply to exist because one day down the road, if the women’s side of the game becomes financially
lucrative, it will be handy to have a women’s team. Even by those standards, 2025-26 has started poorly.
“There are some things we can work on for sure,” manager Gareth Taylor said of his side, who have zero points and one goal scored to show for their opening four Women’s Super League games—but did manage to beat second division side Sunderland 5-0 in the first group stage match of the League Cup.
“To maintain attacks a bit more in the top end of the pitch I think is going to be really key for us, so now it’s about can we get more final-third action? We are building up pretty well, but then we get to the final third and things are breaking down, so we need to try to improve on that if we can—and I know we can.”
Even improvement might not be enough to get them off the floor of the table, where they’re level with West Ham in last place—the league’s only relegation place—but technically clear of the drop thanks to having a slightly less worse goal differential, given their next opponents are title hopefuls Manchester City.
City are currently a point off Chelsea in first, with four wins, a loss, and 12 points having played one more league game so far than the Reds. If there’s a positive for Liverpool, it’s that while City have been winning, they have also conceded seven goals—currently a bottom half defensive record in the early season.
“We host Manchester City on Sunday and it will be good to be back at Anfield,” Taylor added. “It’s a great game to play in front of our own supporters and we know they are obviously a very good team. They have made a good start, are second in the WSL, and have some good players who can really do damage.
“But we will be there, we will be giving our absolute all and are asking our supporters to stay with the team. Hopefully they can see we are working so, so hard to try and turn this around and improve our league standing. I am confident that we will get there, but of course we are aware we need to improve.”
