🏏 Sun, 7 Sep 2025 12:00 BST
Manchester United Women
vs
Leicester City Women
Positions estimated (no formation data from the API)
Substitutes
Substitutes
Match Preview
- Matchday 1 of the 2025-26 WSL season. United arrive with fresh reinforcement in Jess Park, the 23-year-old winger signed from Manchester City on a four-year deal after winning EURO 2025 with England. Leicester counter with continuity: captain Sam Tierney, a 26-year-old centre-back who holds the club's all-time appearance record and scored the goal that clinched their promotion to the WSL.
- Hinata Miyazawa starts in the number 20 shirt for United. The 25-year-old right winger won the Golden Boot at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup and remains Japan's talisman; at just 157cm she relies on acceleration and close control to unpick defensive lines after making the move from Mynavi Sendai Ladies. She produced a stunning strike in last season's Manchester derby to take Player of the Match honours, so watch how often she isolates Leicester's full-back.
- United's Norwegian pair could settle this one. Elisabeth Terland, 24, scored 13 league goals for Brighton to finish runner-up in the WSL Golden Boot race before joining in summer 2024, and has collected multiple Player of the Month awards since. Alongside her, 23-year-old Celin Bizet Ildhusoy brings raw pace after arriving from Tottenham, with earlier spells at Paris Saint-Germain and Valerenga behind her.
- Ella Toone, 26, is the creative hub. A United academy graduate and EURO 2022 winner with England, her touch in tight spaces and her finishing on the big occasion make her the most dangerous attacking midfielder on the pitch. Ahead of her, France international Melvine Malard — a four-time Champions League winner at Lyon whose 2023 loan became a permanent deal in 2024 — has the movement and penalty-box instinct to turn those passes into goals.
- United's centre-back pairing reads well on paper: Netherlands captain Dominique Janssen, 30, alongside 23-year-old skipper Maya Le Tissier. Janssen has won the WSL with Arsenal and back-to-back Bundesliga titles at Wolfsburg, and is comfortable carrying the ball out of defence. Le Tissier, from Guernsey, took the armband at 22 and has since been named in the PFA WSL Team of the Year. Left-back Anna Sandberg, 22, joined from BK Hacken for a record fee for a Swedish player.
- The goalkeeping duel is a genuine sub-plot. Phallon Tullis-Joyce, the 28-year-old American, stands 185cm and shared the 2024-25 WSL Golden Glove after keeping 13 clean sheets. At the other end, Germany's Janina Leitzig is 183cm, converted an initial loan from Bayern Munich into a permanent move, and was voted Leicester's Player of the Year.
- Leicester's engine room is built on experience. Emily van Egmond, 32, has 163 caps for Australia, won two Bundesliga titles at Wolfsburg and lifted the 2010 AFC Women's Asian Cup; her range of passing sets the tempo. Beside her sits Celeste Boureille, the 31-year-old defensive midfielder who made 71 appearances across five seasons at Portland Thorns and whose positioning is designed to smother exactly the kind of interplay United want between Toone and Terland.
- Leicester's defenders are a thoroughly international group of natural centre-backs. Belgium's Sari Kees, 24, began her career as a goalkeeper before converting and is strong in the air and on the ball. France-capped Julie Thibaud, 27, is the interceptor of the group. And 23-year-old Asmita Ale, an Aston Villa academy product who arrived via Tottenham, became the first player of Nepali heritage to turn professional in England's women's top flight.
- Wales winger Hannah Cain, 26, carries Leicester's main threat from the left, where cutting inside onto her stronger left foot is the obvious route to goal. There is useful firepower in reserve too: Finland striker Jutta Rantala, 25, debuted in her country's top flight at 14 and won both the golden boot and player of the year award in 2019, while 180cm Morocco international Rosella Ayane, 29, a Chelsea academy graduate, offers an aerial outlet if Leicester need one.