WSL relegation battle: Will Liverpool, Leicester, Reading or Brighton go down?

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Five-and-a-half matchdays into the Women's Super League season,Leicester City are still looking for their first point of the campaign. Three teams are on three points and all want to stay in the league.

It's too early in the season to make a big deal of "Danger, danger, Will Robinson!", but two of the teams on three points have played five games.

There are a lot of questions and reasons to be uneasy about where the team stands. Even though each can take positives from their performances so far, they still have hope for the rest of the season, even though second- bottom BRIGHTON were demolished by Spurs on Saturday.

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Here is a look at the teams that are in the bottom half of the WSL. Will the bottom club be able to pull out of it or will they be doomed to the Championship?

Leicester: In last place and in need of balance

The Foxes have a poor record in the WSL despite an improvement in results when Lydia Bedford took over.

The biggest problem forLeicester is their lack of goal threat, because they focus so much of their attention on remaining compact off of the ball in their efforts to not concede. The inclusion of a forward in the starting XI against Reading at the weekend gave them a degree of incision, but even the attacker who showed so much promise when she was younger can't be relied upon for the majority of their goals.

The team needs to find a balance between their defence and counter-defence.

Brighton & Hove Albion: Changing managers won't fix everything

The team with the lowest goal difference is the one that lost to Spurs on Sunday.

It doesn't add up for a team with lofty ambitions and high investment off of the pitch. There are a number of questions in desperate need of an answer but no oracle in sight for the Seagulls as they are looking for a manager for the second time.

The Seagulls lost players like Maya Le Tissier and Inessa Kaagman over the summer, but that wasn't the main problem. Kaagman joined PSV and Le Tissier went to Manchester United, but only the Seagulls replaced them with players who could take over immediately.

The Seagulls are too much like a patchwork quilt, with only 15 players so far this season, but they have more quality than other teams in the table.

If you were to go back to the first game of the season, when the team was down to 10 players, you would see that they stuck together well. Something has failed to add up for the Seagulls so far this season, even though they had a few promising counter attacks in that match.

Liverpool: Constantly close, but constantly falling short

There is only one way to move up the table on goal difference. The Reds have had their ups and downs in their first season back in the top flight. The opening day win against the reigning champion could have been a turning point for the team, but it was followed by a loss in the derby.

This season, the issue of stability is once again the one to watch. The Reds couldn't do much about the goal that opened the scoring against them. In the loss to Manchester City, even though the Citizens dominated the game, they still needed a late goal to win it.

Even with a squad boasting plenty of WSL-tested players and a manager who has won a title with the club before, this campaign is very much about growth and acclimation for the club.

This season is about finding the margins that turn a loss into a draw or a win into a victory. If they keep finding themselves on the wrong side of 2-1 scores, there's a chance they'll go down.

Reading: An unpredictable anomaly in the WSL

Reading needed a late goal from Rachel Rowe to get their three points on Sunday. Reading ended their run of 17 games without a win in all competitions and got their first points of the season with the win overLeicester.

Reading is the only WSL side to have such a distinction, but maybe it's the up-and-down seasons they've enjoyed since their promotion to the WSL, or maybe it's just that they aren't affiliated with a premier league team. If there is any team in the league that is hard to pin down or even predict, it's the Royals, a team able to dig out a comprehensive win against Man United between draws against straggling Villa andEverton.

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