Leicester Leicester City

Man City Manchester City

WHERE AND WHEN

City will end our League Cup group stage with a trip to the Pirelli Stadium to face Leicester City on Wednesday 18 January with kick-off scheduled for 19:00 (UK).

As always, the official Man City app will keep you up to date with all the events, with live commentary provided from kick-off in our Matchday Centre.

Shortly after the full-time whistle a detailed match report will be published before reaction from Gareth Taylor and a player.

You can then catch up with the action via the highlights and full-match replay (on CITY+ and Recast), which will be available as soon as possible after proceedings have finished in Burton.

Team news

Defensive duo Demi Stokes and Kerstin Casparij, as well as winger Hayley Raso, were ruled out of our most recent fixture against West Ham, but the boss explained that their absence wasn’t a major cause for concern.

Indeed, he said that a decision was still to be made on the injured trio’s condition ahead of our showdown with the Foxes.

Taylor explained: “We’re yet to sit down with the medical department and find out where Demi, Kerstin and Hayley are.

“I don’t think there’s anything too significant.

“Hopefully when we train later this afternoon, we’ll have a full squad to select from.”

Next Fixture

All fixtures

Wed 18 Jan

FA Women's League Cup

Leicester

19:00

GMT

Man City

FORM GUIDE

We extended our unbeaten that preceded the winter hiatus to 11 games in our first match of 2023 with a 1-0 victory over West Ham.

This has seen us climb the Barclays Women’s Super League table and apply pressure on the top three.

That form has also translated in the League Cup, with City winning our opening three fixtures, scoring 11 times and registering a trio of clean sheets – seeing us all-but qualify for the knockout stages.

The hosts on Wednesday night have found WSL victories hard to come by this season, with Leicester currently sat bottom in the Barclays Women’s Super League table.

In the Conti Cup, however, their fortunes have slightly changed with two wins and one loss in their three games so far.

Taylor preview

“It’s hard to say what we’ll see tomorrow. [Leicester manager Willie Kirk] will say the same about us.

“They’re a decent opponent, flying high after their win at the weekend, which was an important victory.

“I’ve known Willie Kirk all this period in the women’s game and he’s a good guy and coach. He had some good success at Everton, taking them to the FA Cup final.

“They have the right guy in there to drive things forward. It’s always about recruitment, the support and long term vision.”

LAST TIME OUT

Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw moved back to the top of the Barclays Women’s Super League goalscoring charts as we restarted our league campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over West Ham.

The Jamaica international scored the only goal in what was our first match in five weeks following the winter break – her ninth in the WSL and 13th in all competitions.

By scoring at the Chigwell Construction Stadium, the 25-year-old is now at the chart’s summit.

A closely contested first half saw the scoreline goalless at the break before we flew out the traps after the interval by bagging the only goal of the game. 

A neat move orchestrated in midfield saw Deyna Castellanos thread the ball to Bunny, who rounded the ‘keeper to fire into an empty net.

PREVIOUS MEETING

Taylor’s side earned our first league win of the season against the Foxes with a dominant display at the Academy Stadium in September 2022.

A Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw double and a Lauren Hemp header set us up for a deserved victory in front of 2,853 supporters in what was our first home match of the campaign.

Yui Hasegawa then netted from distance on debut in the closing stages to round off a memorable afternoon.