Aston Villa manager Robert de Pauw spoke to the media ahead of his side’s meeting with Manchester City this Sunday in the Barclays Women’s Super League.
The Villans boss first provided an update on the team news ahead of his side’s visit to Manchester, with some positive fitness updates and some further absentees.
De Pauw noted that Adriana Leon will be out of the squad due to “personal circumstances” whilst also noting that both Georgia Mullett and Anna Leat are “progressing well”.
The Villans boss then provided an update on Lucy Staniforth, expressing that she “took a knock in training on her knee. We did scans and thankfully it wasn’t an ACL injury. But she will be looking at 2-3 weeks out for her.”
Lucy Parker ‘a real professional’ praises de Pauw after Lionesses call up
One of the standout pieces of news from the latest Lionesses squad was the return of Aston Villa’s Lucy Parker, called up for the upcoming friendly clashes with Germany and South Africa.
Parker has appeared in all four WSL encounters for Villa so far this season, helping her side to a first shutout in the league last weekend against Leicester City.
Speaking on her re-inclusion to the England senior side, de Pauw commented “She’s very committed and focused, cool on the ball, sometimes too cool and it looks nonchalant. She knows when to postpone the pass in the midfield and wait for a chance to play the ball through.”
The manager continued, “She’s a wonderful person and really professional, it’s a lot of ingredients to be in the English National Team, which Sarina see’s too. I hope she does well, she deserves it.”
The challenges of the international break
Something that seems to be less spoken about are the challenges that club managers may face during international breaks. More often than not, managers will have to deal with squad members flying off to different parts of the globe, returning at staggered stages, all the while having to manage the players that haven’t been selected for international team duty.
Touching on this, de pauw said “It’s a good moment to give players that stay attention. For the manager, it’s a good breather in between. The biggest thing is that you don’t know how you’re going to get the players back fitness wise. If we look at the injury worries we have, a lot of them were in international time, not our time. Not every association is the same, and all have different facilities and conditions.”
‘We have to start winning games’ urges de Pauw
A cluster of teams in the lower echelons of the Women’s Super League at the start of this term find themselves sat on two draws and two defeats, tallying up to just two points each. Aston Villa are one of them, alongside Leicester City, West Ham United and Everton. A win for any of these sides this weekend will be able to propel them as high as sixth on the table.
Speaking on this, de Pauw expressed “Everyone is still close, sometimes you are a little bit on the unlucky side. In the end you need to focus on yourself, if the opponents drop points, we have to be there. We have to start winning games, the fans get impatient, I get impatient and so do the players. We deserve more in the way we have played in the last four matches, but we really have to earn that.”
Aston Villa will travel to Joie Stadium this Sunday as they face Manchester City in the Barclays Women’s Super League. Proceedings will head underway at 12:15 BST and can be streamed live on BBC Two.
