Leicester City Women: Rebuilding After Relegation
When Leicester City dropped out of the Women's Super League in May, the fall hit hard. Relegation to WSL 2 did not just cost them their place among the elite. It tore the squad apart.
Fourteen players have gone in the summer window. Nine of them were on the pitch for that bruising play-off defeat by Charlton Athletic. Goalkeeper Janina Leitzig has moved to Manchester United. Hannah Cain, Noemie Mouchon and Jutta Rantala – Leicester’s sharpest attacking threats – have all headed to Everton.
What is left is a club stripped back to its frame, forced into a rebuild that will define the next few years.
Tierney stays to lead the reset
Captain Sam Tierney, Leicester’s longest-serving player and the heartbeat of the dressing room, signed a new deal in July that runs until 2028. At a time when so many chose to walk away, she planted her flag.
The 27-year-old has pulled on a Leicester shirt 151 times. She has seen the club at its lowest and at its most ambitious, from training on local parks to chasing trophies. She has lived the climb, the chaos and now the crash.
So why stay?
"I'm not the type to want to jump ship. Since I've been at Leicester, I've created a genuine connection with the club," she told BBC Sport. She talked about the years of turbulence, about feeling that now is the moment to rebuild rather than run.
Leicester’s reputation has taken a battering. On the pitch, last season was brutal. Off it, questions swirled.
The women’s side won just two of their 22 WSL matches. Their goal difference finished at -41. They struggled to score, struggled to compete and, in the end, mirrored the men’s team, who also suffered relegation, dropping into League One.
Doubts followed quickly. Would the women still play at King Power Stadium? Would the budget be slashed? Was this the start of a long slide?
The club’s response has been sharp and decisive. Players who wanted out have been allowed to leave, with Leicester banking valuable fees and pushing that money straight back into the squad. It is ruthless, but it is also a clear reset.
Tierney sees opportunity in the upheaval.
She talks about a new Leicester, one that will “make people jealous” in the years ahead. It is a bold phrase, but it comes from experience. When she first arrived from Sheffield United in 2020, the women’s team were training on local parks, away from the men’s set-up at Belvoir Drive. The gap between then and now is, in her words, “incredible”.
She wants that progress to mean something. She wants players to want Leicester. To stay at Leicester. To envy Leicester.
From yo-yo threat to long-term plan
Tierney has already lived several versions of this club. She has played under seven managers. She helped win promotion to the WSL in 2021. She was part of the side that reached the Women’s FA Cup semi-finals in 2024.
She knows how quickly things can change – and how fragile success can be.
The aim now is not just to go back up. It is to stay there. Leicester have flirted with becoming a yo-yo club, bouncing between divisions without ever settling. Tierney is determined to break that cycle.
She admits the transformation “won’t happen overnight” but is fully aligned with the direction the club has set. “The type of person I am means I'm not happy if I don't feel like I'm finished somewhere,” she said. She wants to leave Leicester, one day, in a stronger position than the one she walked into.
That is the measure she has set for herself.
A different Leicester takes shape
On the grass, the reset has already begun. Pre-season is under way. Leicester beat Rugby Borough, drew with Manchester United and lost to Liverpool – a mixed set of results, but useful markers for a team trying to find its new identity.
Six new signings have arrived. Three more players, alongside Tierney, have renewed their contracts. The churn has been dramatic, yet there is a growing sense of clarity.
Tierney can feel it.
"You can see there's been a reflection period, there's been a review and you can see the direction we want to go in. We can feel that. We've changed," she said.
The squad looks different. That is inevitable after relegation. But for Tierney, the key is not just who comes in; it is what they bring. Drive. Desire. Commitment to the project.
“We've got those people and it has been quite refreshing,” she said. This is not about patching up the old Leicester. It is about building a different one and, as she puts it, “changing the narrative on who we are and how we're seen.”
Pressure off, standards high
Personally, Tierney is desperate for a season that is not suffocated by the weekly fear of relegation. The mental toll of constant survival battles, she says, is “not always acknowledged”. It wears on players, staff, everyone inside the club.
This campaign, starting with a WSL 2 opener against her former side Sheffield United on 6 September (14:00 BST), feels like a restart.
"It's hard as a player. You're trying to give it your all but things just aren't going right," she reflected on the struggles of last year.
Now, the ambition is clear. Leicester want to be an exciting side on the ball. A team that is difficult to beat. A team that surprises people.
Of course, promotion is the target. Tierney does not dodge that. But she refuses to chase it at any cost.
“It’s got to be done in a sustainable way because if I sit here this time next year and we're in a worse position, then there's no point,” she said.
So the message is firm: go up, and stay up. Build a Leicester that belongs in the WSL and can remain there for years, not seasons.
The exodus has happened. The rebuild has started. Now comes the real test – can this new Leicester, led by a captain who refused to walk away, turn relegation into the foundation of something stronger?
