5,000-1 title odds? (Now that sounds familiar...)

CITY WOMEN PREPARING FOR FIRST GAME IN THE TOP FLIGHT

A SECOND 5,000-1 triumph at the King Power Stadium has not been ruled out as Leicester City Women get their maiden Women’s Super League season under way this afternoon.

City travel to Aston Villa for a lunchtime kick-off (12.30pm) in the opening game of their first top-flight campaign, Jonathan Morgan’s side the sole newcomers as the only club to be promoted from the Championship.

They are such outsiders that they were priced at 5,000-1 to win the title, the same odds as the men’s side were when they shocked the football world to lift the Premier League trophy in 2015-16. Naturally, optimistic City fans were not willing to miss out on the possibility of lightning striking twice, and a flurry of wagers brought the odds down to 300-1.

But is the gulf between City, and the three favourites Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal, really that big?

“When that came out, all my friends were sending me messages,” said manager Morgan, pictured with the FA Championship trophy.

“That question was asked about how I feel our chances are this season.

“There are some fantastic teams in the WSL. Do I think we’re going to be competing at the top?

“The probability is that we can go and give it a go. Is it going to happen? We don’t know.

“On any given day, any team can be beaten.

“The team that wins will be the team that makes the fewest mistakes and that’s what we work on with our players, minimising mistakes

“We’ll always make chances, we’ve got some fantastic attacking flair in our line-up, but first and foremost, if we’re going to compete at the top, we need to make sure our mistakes are minimised and that we have the right mentality, so that if we do make a mistake, we don’t let it hit us hard, and we work back towards our own goals that we have.

“Time will tell. Come back to me in a year’s time.” With seven new signings, and an eighth waiting on a visa, added to a squad that have won 18 of their last 20 games in all competitions, confidence in the ability of the team is high.

But Morgan has still been keen to instil an underdog mentality.

He said: “We’re the newcomers in the league.

“We’ve built a belief and confidence that our ability is good enough to compete with everyone, but at the same time, we’ve got to take on a siege mentality.

“We’ve got to take everything, it’s not going to get given to us. We’ve got to work hard for that.

“We’ve got to understand that, externally, everyone is going to see us as the newcomers so the underdog mentality is naturally there.

“It’s just about working hard and making sure we take what’s ours by playing the best we can.”