European spot is Stoney target despite injury list
Since sitting top of the Women’s Super League at Christmas, Manchester United’s women’s team have suffered three defeats from five games, as a run of testing fixtures coincided with a series of injuries.
United fired blanks in both of their league games in February, in contrast to the free-scoring form they showed in their unbeaten start before the new year.
The absence of one global superstar, in particular, has been telling, with veteran United States forward Tobin Heath ruled out for at least 10 weeks in January with an ankle injury.
Expectations were high when the two-time World Cup winner and two-time Olympic Gold medallist joined United last September, and she had a 0.62 goals-per-game ratio on her way to claiming November’s WSL player of the month award.
She has not played since December’s 6-1 victory over Bristol City, in which she scored twice including a curling effort into the top corner from outside the box, a first-time finish that exemplified her audacity, skill and the confidence with which she was playing.
While she has been recovering, her team have slipped out of contention for the title, losing away at Chelsea and Manchester City, as well as suffering a surprise home defeat against midtable Reading, to drop to third place.
Manager Casey Stoney has consistently said her three-season-old team’s target this year was never to win the title. Instead, their ambition is to qualify for Europe for the first time, which they will do if they can break the sixyear dominance of the WSL’S top three positions by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. Strikers Alessia Russo and Lauren James have needed treatment too, along with midfielder Lucy Staniforth, while inform winger Leah Galton suffered ankle ligament damage in February that will keep her out for two months. However, Stoney does not want injuries to be an excuse for their recent run, saying: “I can’t hide away from the fact we’ve had a lot of really important injuries at crucial times in terms of the opposition we were playing, but I won’t ever make injuries an excuse. It’s a window of opportunity for somebody else. It’s about players taking the mantle now and making sure that those that are injured don’t suffer in terms of missing out on Champions League qualification because they’re injured,” Stoney added.
Resuming after women’s football’s international break, United host Aston Villa tomorrow and Stoney believes the break has given her team a chance to regroup, adding: “We’ve definitely reset. We needed the break. The players needed it mentally, to go to a different environment.
“They’ve come back in a really good, positive space. Now it’s about putting things right and the only place to do that is on the pitch.”