Being in WSL is a privilege not a right – relegation risk should be taken seriously

The boos lurch up from the Lower Gladys end. Guttural, albeit technically premature, 45 seconds-ish too quick for the final whistle.

Not that you can blame the Everton faithful for wanting to call it quits on this drab 1-0 Women’s Super League defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion, Everton’s ninth loss of the season and their sixth at home. Sometimes that familiar chemical instinct just takes over, the brain telling the body to commit and just make it stop.

There’s something to be said for keeping heritage alive, that even the ‘Goodison Boo’ won’t be condemned to sepia-tint without a fight. We can still get angry here, fellas. There’s another thing to be said altogether about those boos returning so soon after the early-season promise of new hope and new chapters. 

As of Sunday night, following victories for Liverpool and West Ham over Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City, Brian Sorensen’s side sit third-from-bottom in the WSL, one point above bottom Liverpool, level on points with West Ham United and a point off Leicester above them.

Maybe The Athletic is overreacting. But it feels many have forgotten there is a threat of relegation this season, that, with the WSL’s expansion from 12 to 14 teams and the promotion play-off between the bottom-placed WSL side and third-placed WSL2 side. For whatever reason, the spectre of the latter has been met in press boxes and boardrooms with a shrug, another shrug, some WSL-WSL2 equivalent of, “Lads, it’s Tottenham”.

Yet, it was clear on Friday night from those in the Goodison stands that they weren’t underplaying the risk, nor those Liverpool fans at St Helens on Sunday, twirling their red-and-white striped scarves over their heads at having finally tasted the sweet lacquer of league victory this season following their 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur. 

And it was these scenes, so disparate in their respective anguish and relief, that should serve as a reminder to those running these clubs that the threat of relegation is very real. 

The gap between the top of WSL2 and the bottom of WSL has, in recent history, been more precarious than conquerable, the financial buy-in required to compete not worth the pay-off for most ownerships. Yet, this January, WSL2 teams at the top are bolstering their ranks, fuelled by the knowledge that if there is a time to get in on this women’s football deal, now is it. Two WSL2 win an automatic pass to the top. The third wins a one-off showdown on home turf with the bottom-placed WSL side.

The latter is a prospect that has emboldened rather than deterred. Former top-flight sides Bristol City and Crystal Palace, seven and eight points behind leaders Charlton Athletic, have both been busy securing players with WSL experience. 

Birmingham City, five points behind Charlton, spent a reported second-tier record £270,000 ($370,000) to sign midfielder Wilma Leidhammar from Norrkoping.

Three and a half years ago, such a fee would have been a world record. 

Now, it’s a benchmark for second-tier ambition. 

It is also a timely warning to WSL teams who forget that the top-flight is a privilege, not a right. 

Liverpool have, for their part, heeded this, spending more than £1million in the January transfer window on an encouraging array of future promise and present impact. Three of those players – goalkeeper Jennifer Falk, midfielder Denise O’Sullivan (brought in for a club-record fee of £300,000 from North Carolina Courage) and Aurelie Csillag – were instrumental in Sunday’s victory. 

A big January had always been the plan, taking a half-season to adjust to a new playing style under new management, to give new recruitment head Rob Clarkson, who joined in the summer, time to gauge where the additional stitching was required before committing to any wholesale changes. 

Yet, before kick-off on Sunday at St Helen’s, there still skulked a jittery energy in the press room and in the terraces, an understanding that the prevailing winds needed changing and fast. While the gap in quality between the WSL and WSL2 is still notable, momentum and morale can play a part. 

The same realisation slowly permeated around Goodison at full time on Friday night. The Everton hierarchy’s vision for this season did not include injuries to key players such as captain Megan Finnigan and forward Katja Snoeijs, the departure of CEO Hannah Forshaw after less than a year in the role, or the ongoing transfer row with France striker Kelly Gago, whom Everton made their highest-paid player in the summer.

But there is a recognition internally that performances under Sorensen, often laborious with players unable to execute tactical nuances, have not been good enough. There is also recognition that Everton remain a work in progress and that the persistent calls to the new ownership for more investment in the squad – whose budget is the second-lowest in the WSL for the third successive season, according to sources – can’t keep being ignored. 

And perhaps that is what is needed: the sharpening of vision, the cold-blooded rush of survival mode. 

Before the season began, there was an acknowledgement among senior figures at numerous WSL clubs that the watermark for existence had risen, that getting by would require more pocket-digging. Six months later, there is a growing understanding that those earlier projections were actually lowballed, that valuations and fees are rising more quickly than had been imagined.

Even without the threat of relegation, Everton fans’ discontent is understandable. According to Opta, only at Arsenal’s Meadow Park (no wins) and Manchester City’s Joie Stadium (no wins) do Everton have a worse win rate than at Goodison Park (10 per cent). 

If a WSL team finds itself on the sorry end of the promotion play-off, it will boil down to a failure to take the tide seriously, to sitting slack-jawed in the directors box as the walls cave in and those clubs around you nab yet another player off your wishlist.

Because that is where the stench of relegation begins to waft, eventually latching onto a depleted bench and another lacklustre backwards pass.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Liverpool, Everton, Women's Soccer

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