Hello!
I hope you all have survived the month without European women’s football and weren’t forced to resort to waking up at 2am just to catch a glimpse of Chelsea playing in America like I was. Fortunately, the Women’s Super League is back this weekend and I have decided I will be too via the medium of this newsletter.
Okay not every day this time. I think that would make me keel over, but once a week (at least to start with).
Some of you might know that I used to write a column called ‘Five Things We Learned About the WSL’. I’m going to migrate a version of that here. The intention is to give everyone a quick and easy round up of the weekend’s WSL fixtures on a Monday with some thoughts about what is going on in the league.
I have written about a gazillion long form previews on the WSL, some of which are here and here, all of which are now out of date because I wrote them before Keira Walsh was announced at Barcelona. So instead I thought I would give you a quick one sentence primer for every team in the WSL. Enjoy and I’ll see you Monday.
Arsenal - Jonas Eidevall has a massive second season on his hands as he attempts to end Arsenal’s longest ever trophy drought with a settled squad
Aston Villa - A team full of player profiles with ‘time for one last job’ energy; striker Rachel Daly could prove to be the signing of the summer
Brighton - Lost even more players than Manchester City this summer with a big rebuild on Hope Powell’s hands
Chelsea - Emma Hayes’ side have won four of the last five WSL’s, and with a bumper transfer window, look set to make it five of the last six
Everton - Were almost impressively bad given their squad last season and seem to be taking a scattergun approach to recruitment but new manager Brian Sorensen has plenty to work with
Leicester - Hard not to feel a bit concerned about a Leicester team who struggled last season and haven’t really strengthened over the summer
Liverpool - Finally returning to the WSL after appallingly being absent for the past two seasons, Matt Beard’s side look ready to slot straight back in
Manchester City - *sighs in Gareth Taylor*
Manchester United - Marc Skinner is building an impressive squad and may finally have the depth to break into the top three if everyone can stay fit
Reading - Their ability to maintain their top-flight status is consistently underlooked and without much turnover at the club, expect it to continue
Tottenham - Proved themselves to be a competent defensive team last season but they really must add goals this year with two new attackers in Nikola Karczewska and Celin Bizet to help them
West Ham - Now managed by Paul Konchesky (yes that Paul Konchesky), they have plenty of stars but will they all still twinkle without Olli Harder?
The WSL returns
Gavin Makel's got off lightly here!