Andree Jeglertz doesn't do spotlights. The Manchester City head coach is constitutionally wired to deflect praise, spread credit, protect the collective. Which makes it all the more telling that after City's 4-2 win over Liverpool, before anyone even asked, Jeglertz volunteered it himself: "Lauren Hemp's performance is amazing. She plays on a different level at the moment."
He wasn't wrong. Against a Liverpool side pressing high and hard and making life genuinely difficult for City's build-up play, Hemp was the one who made it irrelevant. Twenty-four total carries. Seventeen progressive actions. Four chances created — the most of any player on the pitch. For long stretches of that match, City's entire attacking output ran through her.
The 100-club member who actually assists
Hemp's goal in the win — her second of the night — pushed her WSL tally to 52 goals and 48 assists across 154 appearances. That's 102 goal involvements in total, making her just the seventh player in WSL history to reach the 100 mark. The other six — Vivianne Miedema (138), Beth Mead (127), Bethany England (114), Fran Kirby (111), Nikita Parris (111) and Khadija Shaw (106) — got there predominantly through goals. Hemp split it almost exactly down the middle. Finisher and creator. That duality is what makes her genuinely different.
The broader statistical picture backs it up without any editorialising needed. No player has created more open-play chances in WSL history — 322 and counting. Last season she topped the league for chances created (49), big chances created (15), and expected assists (6.8). Her 29 chance-ending carries in 2021-22 remains a competition record. She's also won back possession 196 times in the opposition's final third across her WSL career, which is the part of her game that rarely gets the headline but makes everything else work.
At 26, Hemp is doing this in her prime. Three matches into the new season, she's already fashioned 13 chances — more than any other WSL player at this stage. Liverpool were just the latest side to find no clean answer to her.
The 2027 Ballon d'Or question
Former City midfielder Laura Coombs used Instagram to fire the starting gun on a Hemp 2027 Ballon d'Or campaign. It's a fun idea, but it runs headlong into a complicated reality: Hemp's highest-ever finish in that ranking is 28th, in the 2024 edition. The gap between WSL dominance and global recognition remains wide, partly because the competition itself still struggles for the international visibility it deserves, and partly because Hemp's talent has an odd tendency to blur into background noise — so consistent, so complete, that it gets processed as a given rather than a spectacle.
That's the Hemp Paradox. She's so good at so many things that people forget to be surprised by her.
Whether the Ballon d'Or comes or not, her WSL opponents have a more immediate problem: there's roughly a 66 per cent chance she's going to be directly involved in a goal against them. That number has been climbing all season. City's title odds look a lot healthier when she's playing like this — and right now, there's no sign she's slowing down.
