“MICHELE WANTS TO WIN EVERYTHING!” – LCL head coach Jocelyn Prêcheur talks

Ahead of the other massive London derby this weekend, London City Lionesses’ head coach Jocelyn Prêcheur (below, centre) speaks exclusively to Helen M Jerome about their opponents, Spurs’ and their progress this season – plus LCL’s own advance and huge ambitions under owner, Michele Kang.

As always, Prêcheur’s honesty, thoughtfulness – and abundant charm – shine through. And he reveals at least one secret too…

You’ve made huge strides, huge progress. But Spurs have also made huge progress. I wonder what you’ve made of them so far and where you think their threats and possible weaknesses are.

You’re right.

I think Tottenham made a has a very good evolution this season and I think the arrival of the new coach [Martin Ho]; the new dynamic he started is very positive.

As compared last season, I can feel the confidence of the group is so much better, organisation also.

He’s doing a great job.

I’m not surprised because Tottenham always have been great players and very talented players.

Now they have the good environment and probably the good cohesion to express themselves and perform and that’s why they are fourth in the table.

They are very disciplined defensively speaking, very aggressive on the ball.

They are smart switching, sometimes pressing very high, sometimes very more compact and they have a middle block.

It is complicated to go through.

Even defensively when they are low they are very compact, very narrow. It’s hard to find the space, so very strong defensively. They are able to attack also both ways in possession, but also very strong in transition.

Many players are talented, their forwards are very interesting and not only England, but the other one [Tandberg] also.

So a complete squad and another good game to play for us.

It’s interesting that they only made a couple of signings, but seem to have just tweaked it enough to make the difference. I don’t know if you’ve seen their Japanese centre-back Koga, who’s only 19.

Yeah, if I’m honest with you, we fought to convince her [Toko Koga] to join us, but Tottenham was better than us!

No, of course, very talented.

And this is not only for Tottenham. If you look at the best teams, if you want to really take all the potential of a squad, you need stability, you need to work when you find the player globally – and want the player. And after, you need this stability and time to work with them to create the connection to make everything become automatic..

And that’s why the big clubs – Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham – just change where they need and bring even more strength than the previous season without changing everything.

So it’s pretty smart, and one of the reasons they started this league very well.

Apparently Barcelona were one of the other teams Koga turned down – and you can sometimes get lost when you go to a very big club.

Yeah, I’m not sure I agree with her choice, of course!

But more seriously, now we are talking about one of the best, talented young defensive players.

The way she performed during the Olympics was for such a young player already outstanding.

I’m not surprised she chose the WSL, because you mentioned Barcelona, but I think when you are so talented, you want to play with the best and more importantly, against the best. And the best teams are in England.

So I’m not surprised by her choice.

On the contrary, I think it’s pretty smart.

And hopefully we will create for her many problems on Sunday!

One of the things that strikes me is now your balance in midfield is much better and I think Grace Geyoro (above) has a lot to say in that. I wonder what you if you could talk a little bit about what she adds, not just in her play?

First, Grace is a very competitive player.

She wants to win wherever she plays.

And she is very helpful for me to build this winning culture, which takes a long time.

But even, for example, during our training, we have a competition system and a ranking between players, and she adapted well. She’s regularly on the top of this ranking, because she’s a really competitive player and, as I said many times, she’s strong enough physically speaking.

You mentioned on the balance in the midfield and she’s very helpful in and out of possession to bring this balance. I think the “complementarity” she has at the moment with Asllani and Kumagai is very interesting in the midfield.

She’s starting to adapt well. She takes a lot of English lessons to improve her English because I can feel she wants to communicate a lot.

She’s a natural leader, so now she’s a little frustrated because her English is not as good as it should be, but she works on it.

And as soon as she improves on that, she will start to share more and more of her experience, and she will express not only her quality on the pitch, but also her leadership

You gave the statistic last week that 60% of your players are between 18 and 22. So having someone like Grace in there, who has seen it all, done it all, been at every tournament, that’s got to add something else as well as her actual playing.

Absolutely, sharing an experience of the high level.

Sharing also what it takes, what you need to become a very high-level athlete.

When we have so many young players, for a coach, it’s very valuable to have this link in the squad.

Grace is one of them.

Kosovare [Asllani], Saki [Kumagai], Nikita [Parris] and Elena [Linari] (all above), for example, are also a very good link to share their experience and explain to this new generation, who are very talented, but talent is not enough.

If we want to go where we want to go, if we want to respect the ambitions of Michele, we need to work hard.

There is a discipline to build a culture, you choose the world you want.

This is where these experienced players are so precious for me and the staff..

You’ve talked about how you get genuinely excited about seeing the young players develop. So do you have a one-year, three-year, five-year plan of where you want to be with them?

Developing players, you don’t know how much time it will take.

Depends, of course, how talented they are and how serious they are, how hard they work.

But I don’t have such a long vision.

I think these players can perform in a shorter term, in one or two seasons.

By the way, I’m not sure Michelle will give me three or five years to get the results she wants!

So probably I need to do it faster.

But no, I believe these players can… they are good examples of adaptation to the league. If you look at Isobel Goodwin, Freya Godfrey, Lucia Coralles, and Wassa Sangare, the adaptation is impressive for me and quite positive, which one more time proves that age is not important.

If you are talented, and you are able to perform in WSL, you play.

Now it’s about getting more experience, paying attention to details, reducing the number of mistakes and really focusing of the efficiency offensively, defensively..

This is what we are working on with these players specifically.

With some exceptions, though, it’s hard for us to convince a confirmed and experienced player to join the project, and it’s natural.

One more time, I don’t blame anybody for that, it makes sense.

The strategy is, if we cannot have the best of today, what about the best of tomorrow?

And when I talk tomorrow, I don’t talk about three or five years.

I think they can perform and be competitive in this league.

Probably one season to adapt, but next season it will be another story.

When you sit down with Michele [Kang], do you talk about realistic targets like the two cups – the FA Cup and the Subway Cup – and maybe trying to get into the Europa League?

Oh, I think, yes, it’s true.

Each time we talk with Michele, it’s: Michele wants to win everything!

She would like to have the champion team of England this season, if it’s possible, maybe next season…

She invests a lot, so of course she wants results as fast as possible, so it’s completely normal and natural.

But after we know football is not that simple, especially in England. It would have been so much easier in France, because the league is not as competitive, but in England now it will take time..

We know the players are important, but the infrastructure, the facilities are also important.

She’s ambitious and she puts pressure on us to perform as fast as possible.

But she knows we need to build something stable.

It’s not only to perform one time, it’s to perform consistently and really be one of the best teams in this league.

So we need to build as infrastructure, the staff develop the knowledge of everyone.

My staff is very dynamic, but very young.

So it’s also part of my job to increase their knowledge, bring their experience.

We also have a methodology to build – probably the heart of the project – really working specifically for women players, women athletes.

So it’s about how we can optimise our training methodology, recovery methodology, prevention from injuries.

Trust me, at the moment, prevention of injury is a huge topic, something we talk a lot more and more in regards of the news we read every day.

Many things will take time, so it’s about finding the good balance.

Everyone in this club – and this is why I’m so enjoying this experience – is working very, very hard.

Yes, we have a good positive evolution!

But I think we are far from expressing our full potential as a team, but also at the club.

We are building everywhere. Every month when you look at around you, something is building.

A new pitch, a new gym, a new building, something else.

So we are climbing.

We are maybe far from the top, but I think we are not at the valley anymore.

I noticed at the end of the game at Stamford Bridge, you and Sonia Bompastor and Sandy Baltimore [who played for him at PSG] had a chat on the pitch. I wondered if you were picking Sonia’s brains or what was happening.

No, first, I made a joke!

I told Sandy: after everything we went through, how is it possible you dare to make an assist against me? After only four minutes!

But no, I wanted to get some news from her and… I had the opportunity to chat with Oriane Jean-François before the game..

I didn’t meet Sandy before, so it was a good time to chat a little and talk about the old times. And with Sonia we talked also about the French national team and the international window and the game against Germany.

Because of course, being French, we wanted them to qualify for the final.

So let’s focus and give support to Sandy and all the French players for the preparation of qualification for the World Cup.

Both of them are good friends of mine – and Sonia also.

It’s always a pleasure to talk football with Sonia and Camille [Abily].

Despite the fact that we are both in London, we don’t have the time to meet.

We are very busy, so we need to play against each other to find the time to talk football a little!