The Conductor of the Lionesses

“I’m not a traditional holding English midfielder. I’m not a tough tackler breaking up play, it’s not my forte.”

So said Keira Walsh, when speaking to The Guardian in 2020, and though the second half of her statement does the Chelsea and England star a disservice, it gets to the nub of a fascinating development in football, that of a fundamental role changing in modern times, evolving into something else entirely.

A New Tradition: The Reimagining of the Holding Midfielder

Before we get to that though, let’s start with her self-depreciation because Walsh is a tough tackler, as tigerish as any women implanted in the thick of things. Her timing in a challenge is often excellent and never less than fully committed to, while her positional sense and game intelligence ensures that interceptions usually negate the need for a tackle in the first place.

In this regard therefore Walsh is an ‘anchor’, a ‘screen’. She protects her defence in the same combative manner of all of the traditional holding midfielders that went before her.

Yet a more accurate reading of her statement would be thus. The Ballon d’Or Féminin nominee is not solely a holding midfielder. She is not exclusively a tough tackler.

As much a creative force as a destroyer, Walsh’s passing is inventive, her range broad. She links up play, dictates the tempo of games, and always seeks to carve out openings.

She is then a deep-lying regista. A play-maker, but all the while stationed behind players charged with doing that very same job.

Like Andrea Pirlo, and 2024 Ballon d’Or winner Rodri, in the men’s game, Walsh has come to redefine the number 6 role, something that initially confounded supporters of the Lionesses.

Why was this slight-of-build, adventurous spirit being deployed back there?

Multiple major finals later – with Walsh pivotal to each success – and they’re not questioning why anymore.

Tactical IQ: Playing Two Moves Ahead

On coming through the ranks at Blackburn, Walsh was chiefly deployed as a right-footed left-back before being moved into more attacking areas.

The player Manchester City signed in 2014 was therefore a jill-of-all-trades, a talent yet to be defined by a specialist skillset.

It was Nick Cushing who did that, the teenager’s first big coaching influence, who positioned her at the very heart of his City side, swayed by Walsh’s unerring reading of danger and an astute awareness of which squares on football’s chessboard her team-mates planned to move to next.

It is an astuteness that has taken this wonderful player to the very zenith of her sport, winning multiple league titles for City, Barcelona and Chelsea, as well as attaining two Euro Championships with England, and it cannot be understated how big a factor her in-game intelligence has played in her rise.

Data box – Since 2020, Walsh has taken on 32 shots in the WSL. 25 of them have come from outside the box.

Situated just ahead of her team’s rearguard it falls on Walsh to conduct from deep, to construct attacks, and she does so with analytical vision at breakneck speed. That cannot be taught. Only honed.

It is a tactical IQ that the Guardian’s Suzanne Wrack admires greatly.

“In 2019, Nick Cushing said: "I will not hold back: she is up there unrivalled with the most intelligent players I have ever worked with." There may have been a few raised eyebrows at the time, despite Keira Walsh's obvious talent and footballing intelligence, but it has proved to be prophetic.

Walsh's reading of the game, her passing game and her positional awareness have always been there, but they have been refined and her time in Barcelona further developed her amid their quick passing game.

Now, she is rightly gaining more recognition for her quality on the global stage. That acknowledgement is deserved.”

The Barcelona Influence: Refining the English Engine

After being instrumental in Manchester City briefly dominating the English footballing landscape, Walsh moved to Barcelona in 2022 for a world record fee and comfortably acclimatised to the immense demands of playing at the home of tiki-taka.

In her first season in Catalonia, she was the fulcrum of a Champions League-winning side, one that secured a seventh Liga F title for good measure.

Her next campaign saw her help orchestrate a remarkable and historic quadruple that had Barca labelled as ‘all-conquering’.

“It’s not easy to come to Barça and play as a No 6. She’s taken that with ease,” gushed her esteemed team-mate and fellow Ballon d’Or Féminin nominee Caroline Graham Hansen. “Her passing of the game, understanding of the game, where she can win the ball for us and make us keep attacking, it’s been amazing,”

Having players around her of the calibre of last year’s Ballon d’Or Féminin winner Aitana Bonmati and Patri Guijarro will have surely helped as Walsh established a far-reaching reputation for being one of the shrewdest operators in a centre-circle, and furthermore England went on to reap the rewards.

In the 2025 Euro final, the midfielder directly came up against both players, playing a critical role in a famous victory for the Lionesses. She was their equal that night. A true peer to greatness.

By the time England were crowned champions of Europe, Walsh had left Spain for Chelsea and perhaps it is apt she finished off her footballing degree over there when we factor in her childhood habits, something that explains too the type of player she would become.

As a young girl – despite being a staunch Manchester City fan – her father would sit her down and encourage her to watch Barcelona at every opportunity. To study Sergio Busquets first and foremost, a talent who appeared to play every game with an in-built sat-nav.

Maybe such traits can be taught after all.