Why did Bristol City have such a poor WSL season?

After a long, hard season full of struggles, Bristol City's increasingly inevitable exit from the Women's Super League was confirmed on Sunday.

Their 4-0 home defeat to Manchester City ensures an immediate return to the Championship for the Robins, who won the second division last season.

Lauren Smith's team has lost all ten home games in the league so far. They face Everton on the final day and will be looking to avoid defeat at Ashton Gate in 2023/24.

Bristol City were never outside the bottom two places in the WSL all season, sliding to the bottom of the table at the start of 2024 and never appearing again.

By every statistical measure, it was a terrible season for City. They are on course for their lowest points tally in a 22-game WSL season.

They need to win their last two games – including a visit to Chelsea – to better the 11 games achieved by Birmingham City and Reading, the relegated teams of the last two seasons.

Only two WSL teams without points deductions have ever had a worse points per game record than Bristol City's current 0.3 – Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2016 and Yeovil in 2018.

The Robins have had it so difficult this season that they are on course to record their lowest ever points total in a women's top flight season – even worse than in 2015 when they played as Bristol Academy in a 14-game season scored eight points.

The question is: why was it so bad?

It's true that Bristol, in its various guises, has always found it difficult to compete with the big girls of the WSL. Unlike the Arsenals and Chelseas of the world, Bristol has no billionaire Premier League brothers to share facilities with.

Their demise this season makes Bristol the first team to be relegated from the top flight three times since the WSL was founded in 2011.

But as the points total shows, this was a more comprehensive relegation than any the club had previously suffered.

“We can take successes from this season”

These were Bristol City's problems. Fears have been expressed that the gap between the WSL and the Championship could widen and that a similar gap to that between the Premier League and the men's Championship could form.

Smith's group are the first promoted team to be relegated directly from the WSL since Doncaster in 2016.

The manager felt she was lagging behind the elite when building her squad for this season and during such a difficult campaign.

Ahead of the 1-0 home defeat to Liverpool in mid-April, Smith said: “We have a young team – a team of teenagers. Our ethos is to develop young talent; We are all proud of that.”

“Even those who are not teenagers are young in the WSL and they have done well. If we look at what we are about, we can take some success from this season.”

“It depends on the lens you look through.”

Smith rightly points out her team's inexperience. Bristol City have the youngest average age of any starting XI in the WSL this season at 24 years and 148 days. It is more than a year younger than the next team (Manchester City, with an average of 25 years and 306 days).

A lack of WSL nous as a whole has shown it. Of the 30 senior players on Bristol City's books, only six have played more than 50 WSL games.

Smith had the opportunity to strengthen her squad for the fight, with 14 new signings – 11 of them permanent and three on loan. But only three of the 11 full-time signings came from other WSL teams.

There are also few who are considered instant successes, with the truly successful signing being striker Amalie Thestrup. The Danish striker, signed from PSV last summer, has scored nine league goals – impressive considering the team has scored 20 goals in total.

There was chaos at the back with 58 goals conceded – a league high. A shortcut to chaos is the use of four goalkeepers in the WSL.

Kaylan Marckese joined Arsenal on loan in the summer but played just four times before returning to London in January. Shae Yanez was signed as her replacement from the San Diego Wave, while Olivia Clark and Fran Bentley also played between the posts in the league.

“We are incredibly proud of the fans”

Ultimately, Bristol City's biggest positive this season has not been their performance on the pitch, but the feverish support it has given them.

“We have shown as a club that we have a huge fan base, we have a huge community that supports us,” Smith said. “We love going out and hearing the roar. At the end of the game we thank them, they deserve it. They accompany us through thick and thin.”

8,749 spectators watched the defeat against Manchester City that confirmed relegation, while a whopping 14,138 spectators watched the 2-0 defeat against Manchester United in November.

City had the fifth highest average home attendance in the WSL with 7,260 spectators, behind only the top four who had games at the Premier League ground this season. City's home crowd was supported by playing all their home games at Ashton Gate, sharing this with the men's team.

That agreement will continue into next season, while Smith has been assured she has the club's “full support” if the team returns to League Two.

“I think it’s unbelievable the numbers that come out,” Smith said. “They were brilliant, the numbers we put behind us. We’re just incredibly proud of these things.”

The matchday experience is a NewCo dream, with entertainment perhaps more suited to Glastonbury than a professional football match.

This season's problems can be traced back to the club's home game against second-bottom West Ham in January.

Twerking mascots, a stirring soundtrack from the Ashton Gate DJ and a pre-game sticker exchange at several tables – it's all there. At halftime, a relay race took place on the field between fans in inflatable fruit costumes.

For all the fun and games, City lost 2-1 to the only team they could realistically have overtaken in their fight for survival and began their slow march towards relegation.