Ahead of Aston Villa Women’s WSL match against Manchester City Women, manager Carla Ward has given the lowdown on the squads current injury crisis and transfer news.
In this mornings pre-match press conference ahead of Aston Villa Women’s clash with giants Manchester City Women, Carla Ward said that squad numbers are severely impacted this weekend with injuries, COVID-19 and international call ups all playing a part.
“We have nine missing,” Ward said. “We have a number coming back from COVID, we have some COVID cases, some injuries which is part and parcel of the game I guess.
Several important first team members are missing, Ward gave names for who will not be playing against the side who have finished runners up in the Women’s Super League on six of the last seven seasons.
“Remi Allen’s out, Petz (Ramona Petzelberger) is out, Emily Gielnik is at the Asia Cup, Elisha N’Dow is out, there’s nine out.
“We are thin but we will be ready.”
It is not just the first team that has been blighted with absentees. Having numbers thin throughout most of the season, Aston Villa have turned to their Academy side, who have had players represent the first team in their FA Women’s Continental League Cup this season.
Ward continued wo say that she would have liked to have offered some of the players that have stepped up to first team football this season opportunities in the league but there are no players that are available.
She said “We’ve got four on the bench which isn’t a problem but we’ve got five academy players registered, one is in the squad in Liv McLoughlin, but the other ones registered are actually injured for the academy right now which is a shame.
“We won’t have academy players on the bench, not because we don’t want to because they are great young players, it is more that those who have been stepping up sadly at this point are either injured or off with COVID.
“It is one of those things, we’ve got four strong players on the bench and we are not going to moan and groan about it, we’ve got players to go and play the game. While we have been hit in a lot of areas, we get on with it, roll our sleeves up and go and play the game.”
With the depleted squad, the obvious answer is to dip into the transfer market, but in January that’s a harder task than first thought.
“A centre-forward is our priority, it always has been, we’re working round the clock…last night I was on calls till very late trying to get some things done but it is very difficult”
“This window is typically quite difficult anyway, but this year it seems to be harder, people don’t want to let people go, whether that’s cause of the pandemic and people need big squads, I get that” Ward continued.
The transfer market has been described as ‘non-existent’ in both the woman’s and men’s game, with the COVID-19 pandemic meaning clubs are losing unprecedented amount of money.
“If this was the summer window we would probably have five or six lined up… we have two weeks, were still fighting, we’ve been on more calls this morning and hope we can get someone over the line.”
