New Leicester City Women striker Hlin Eiriksdottir signed a contract extension with Swedish side Kristianstads just three weeks before her move to the WSL, but her old club were not caught off guard by the situation.

While it may seem unusual, Kristianstads’ sporting director Lovisa Strom released a statement to say it was always the understanding that Eiriksdottir may not see through her deal and that offers would be weighed up when they came in. But she did add that, four or five years ago, City wouldn’t have been able to do the deal.

“An extension of Hlin's contract was high on my wish list last autumn, but it took some time before we got the contract in place,” Strom said in a statement. “Every now and then we had a dialogue and were aware that new offers could appear, and in that case we would have to take a position once the situation became clear.

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“Now Leicester City presented an offer that both we at Kristianstads and Hlin were satisfied with, which made this transfer possible. Had this happened four to five years ago, Leicester's interest might have stopped at an interest, but today buying players under contract is a natural part of the football world we are a part of. We are extremely grateful for all Hlin's contribution during the two seasons at Kristianstands and wish her all the best in the WSL.”

City need Eiriksdottir to hit ground running

The task now is to get Eiriksdottir up to speed as quickly as possible to help solve City’s goalscoring problems. They have six in 13 WSL games so far this season.

The issue they might have is that Eiriksdottir has not played since November, when the season in Sweden concludes. The Iceland international was just returning to pre-season training when City made their move.

She played 10 minutes as a substitute in the 4-1 defeat to Everton at the weekend for her first taste of football in England. The plan appears to be to gradually increase that pitch-time.

City boss Amandine Miquel said on Thursday: “She's a player I've been following for a while, so it was good to see her get some first minutes and now we'll start to build up her minutes to see how she adjusts. It's still early days, so we'll have to see how she settles.”

Goals to be had at Man City

Perhaps there’s a chance for a first City goal this weekend too. Heading to Manchester City in the FA Cup fifth-round, Leicester will be underdogs. It was less than two months ago that they lost 4-0 in the equivalent WSL fixture.

However, since then, Man City’s defence has been a little leaky. In their last four WSL fixtures, they’ve conceded 12 goals. Against a wobbling back-line, perhaps Eiriksdottir can work her magic, get on the scoresheet and give herself a big confidence boost going into the WSL relegation fight.