Author: KickingK
Date: Monday October 12th, 2026
Missed a sitter
The thing that endeared me to Ted Lasso, right from the very first episode, was the way it treated the show's female characters. Here was a show about an incredibly male dominated world that had women in important, key roles, who all had their own personalities, drives, motivations and stories. They weren't just there to supply plots to the male characters. It showed that the writers had put care and thought into the structure of the show.
Over the course of the three series, it gradually started to care a little bit too much about it's characters, too often tipping into sentimentality. By the end, it felt like it had run it's course as it had nowhere else to go. It picked the right time to bow out.
So the news that the fourth series was to focus on the vastly different world of women's football was interesting. The writers ability to write for female characters combined with the fresh start of a new team in a new league promised a lot.
The problem is, the show can't let go of it's old characters and plot lines. Rebecca's relationship with a flying bus driver is given significant screen time. Keely and Roy's will-they-won't-they-of-course-they-bloody-will situationship just won't stop. Coach Beard's mid-life crisis continues.
How are all these character's stories integrated into the plot of the nascent Lady Greyhounds team? They're not. At all.
The stories of the football team and it's players have to compete for screen time with a bunch of plot lines that have got nothing to do with them. In previous series, all the disparate stories all revolve around the team, one way or another. Everything felt connected. Here, the football seems superfluous to most of what's happening. The team itself is given very short shrift.
Worse still, the show doesn't adapt to the very different reality of women's football. The men's Premier League is a world of staggering riches where every one has expensive cars and even more expensive suits. Lower league women's football is full of part-timers who have to have second jobs in order to be able to afford to play football. The show does acknowledge this, it depicts members of the team working as a Deliveroo driver, struggling with childcare, trying to balance playing and university, but does absolutely nothing with it.
In one episode, the millionaire owner of the Richmond football club, Rebecca, wrestles with the implication that she might not be a feminist because she gave the head coach's job to a man. But the fact that one player is sleeping in their car because she isn't paid enough by the millionaire owner of the football team that she plays for, an owner who at one point get's on a private jet just to go to a game, simply isn't commented upon. The tonal disconnect is astounding.
When it does focus on Ted and the football, it's brilliant. The whole team is interesting, packed with likable characters with interesting stories. The midfield twins of Siobhan and Niamh absolutely light the place up when given the chance. Alice and Gemma's relationship has real grit to it. And goalkeeper 'Boots' is just the right type of psycho.
Episode Eight features possibly the highlight of all four series so far. Ted having to deal with a character, and possibly a team, in crisis, and showing compassion, empathy and understanding. It's possibly the finest example of 'management' I've seen on screen and is deeply moving. It highlights just how good a manager Ted is, as well as showing the bonds within the team. Their fragility and strengths.
The problem is that it has to share screen time with an interminable Keely & Roy remake of Clockwise (a side plot that not only has nothing to do with the women's team, but doesn't even have anything to do with Richmond) and an appallingly half-arsed spy drama involving Higgins (which eventually involves a plot twist in episode nine that everyone watching would have seen coming in episode three).
The end result is that the story of the football team isn't given enough time to be fully fleshed out. When Alice's story completes, it's rushed and doesn't feel earned. The football itself feels like a sideshow.
The writer's of Ted Lasso know what they're doing. They're trying to keep the fans of the show happy by keeping the tone and plots familiar, whilst gender swapping the players of the football team. But the truth is that a show that once distinguished itself with the strength of it's female characters, simply doesn't give a shit about women's football or it's players.
Women's football deserves so much more respect than this.
