Emma Hayes, asked on Sky Sports if Lauren James will be available for Chelsea's clash with Barcelona this weekend: "I don't know. We'll have to see when the players come back in on Friday."— Ameé Ruszkai (@ameeruszkai) April 17, 2024
Walsh starting for Barcelona. Bronze on the bench. Hampton, Carter, Charles and James starting for Chelsea. Bright, Kirby, Beaver - Jones and Cox on the bench.
🚨🔵 | 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋: Jess Carter is the #UWCL Player of Match against Barcelona! pic.twitter.com/9NYSn1ZcgR— Everything England 🏴 (@TheEngllshGame) April 20, 2024
Ex-England rugby captain Sue Day MBE will take over from Baroness Sue Campbell as the FA's Director of Women’s Football in December. She joins from the RFU where she is currently Chief Operations Officer & Chief Financial Officer. She will oversee development of women's football.— Emma Sanders (@em_sandy) April 24, 2024 Manchester City goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck is set to join Barcelona at the end of the season.#MCFC More from @charlotteharpur ⬇️https://t.co/aXuwjz5XG3— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 24, 2024
🚨🔵🔴 | Ellie Roebuck has signed a pre-contract agreement with Barcelona and will compete with Barcelona No 1 Cata Coll and reserve goalkeeper Gemma Font. #FCBFemeni(@charlotteharpur // @TheAthleticFC) pic.twitter.com/xhknGAYuxw— Everything England 🏴 (@TheEngllshGame) April 24, 2024
Agyemang missing much of the season for Watford contributed to their relegation. Going in the opposite direction are Newcastle who sealed consecutive promotions. How it feels to seal the title in front of your own fans 🍾#FAWNL pic.twitter.com/1DL28KgAK0— FA Women's National League (@FAWNL) April 14, 2024 Interesting to see how quickly they get into WSL. Turned fully professional last year and their average attendances are superior to the Championship and even already comparable to a few clubs in the top tier. If Newcastle end up ultimately competing with top three or so clubs it would obviously only enhance the competition. It would also be good to have that part of the country represented at highest level including academy involvement, particularly given the talent (Carly Telford, Lucy Bronze, Demi Stokes, Steph Houghton, Jill Scott, Jordan Nobbs, Stanway, Beth Mead etc) from that region. Currently the WSL does not have a team north of Manchester. Actually for a similar reason it is also a pity the only club from south west got relegated, despite that Bristol City are still above average in the league with attendances over 7k.
🚨🔵 | 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: Lauren Hemp has signed a new 3-year deal keeping her with Man City until 2027! ✍🏻 #MCWFC pic.twitter.com/fX3GJ7L2ZK— Everything England 🏴 (@TheEngllshGame) April 26, 2024
Hampton, Carter, Charles and James start for Chelsea Women. Bright, Kirby and Beaver - Jones are on the bench. Bronze and Walsh start for Barcelona women.
New youngest ever WSL scorer - Issy Hobson's goal against Arsenal has made her the WSL's youngest ever goalscorer (16y 180d), beating the previous record holder Lauren Hemp by 78 days. #EFC— EFC Statto (@EFC_Statto) April 28, 2024
🇱🇹 🇷🇸 🇫🇷 🏴 Our #YoungLionesses have learnt their #U19WEURO draw!— Lionesses (@Lionesses) April 30, 2024 Our two @UWCL finalists! Congrats to @LucyBronze & @keira_walsh. 👏 pic.twitter.com/w8EuCF9eZ3— Lionesses (@Lionesses) April 29, 2024
James, Hemp, Greenwood, Charles, Zelem, Russo, Keating and Wubben - Moy in EAFC WSL 11 player team of the season.
🚨🔴 | 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋: 18-year-old Michelle Agyemang has signed her first professional contract with Arsenal! ✍🏿 #AWFC pic.twitter.com/MtuzJkkoMi— Everything England 🏴 (@TheEngllshGame) May 2, 2024
Lauren James has finshed second in the FWA vote. Alex Greenwood was third and Khiara Keating was also in the top 6.
What will Arsenal do with Agyemang next season. They might not want another dual registration/loan with Watford given they'll now be in the third tier. Bristol City chief hits out at lack of compensation for academy players and says FA must do more to protect smaller clubs✍️ @TomJGarry#TelegraphWomensSport— Telegraph Women’s Sport (@WomensSport) April 30, 2024 Bristol City chief executive is of the opinion there's a much bigger gap in quality between Premier League & Championship in the women's game compared to the men's. Sadly one thing they do have in common is richer clubs taking prospects out of smaller teams academies for derisory transfer fees. Excerpt (Move your mouse to reveal the content) Excerpt (open) Excerpt (close) Marshall is specifically concerned that money is not trickling down from bigger clubs when they sign youngsters. In recent years, Bristol City saw several of their English stars snapped up for no transfer fee when they were able to move on their 18th birthdays, most notably England star Lauren Hemp's move to Manchester City. Other examples have included Manchester United signing England youth international Aimee Palmer in 2018 through the same loophole, winger Katie Robinson’s 2020 switch to Brighton and, in 2023, Chelsea adding England youth international centre-back Brooke Aspin, who was later loaned back to Lauren Smith’s side for this term. “That really hurt us. She [Aspin] is a generational player and we’ve no doubt she’ll play for England. For her to [be signed by Chelsea] with no fee was hard to take,” Marshall added. “You’re almost to the point where you’re almost a little bit nervous at giving under-18s too much exposure because you know the vultures will be there.” “It’s disheartening. It’s very frustrating that we produce these players, which is to the benefit of the national game and the national team and until we have a system where clubs are adequately compensated for developing those players, it’s difficult to maintain that level of investment in your academy, and it’s difficult to be competitive. “We had a really special group of players who all went for nothing at 18. It was hard to take and it does question why you do that.” Under the rules in the men’s Premier League and EFL, it is mandatory for a club signing a player under the age of 24 when they are out-of-contract to pay a compensation fee, rewarding clubs for developing young talent. In the women’s game, until this season, no compensation fees were involved in such transfers, but a new framework was introduced by the Football Association ahead of the current season. A fixed ‘recognition fee’ must now be paid, based on the number of years that a player has been training at their club’s ‘Professional Game Academy’, but only since PGA’s were launched last year, and the scheme cannot be backdated to take into account years spent in a club’s youth set-up before. The FA has declined to comment but it is understood the rules around recognition fees are to be reviewed by the FA annually in consultation with the clubs. But Marshall does not feel those new rules are sufficient, saying: “The change from the FA last year was a change but it wasn’t far enough. It was a little bit of a token effort. It’s very little compensation and it’s even less for the Championship clubs. There needs to be better rules. Not seen any of their games but Poor has been nominated for WSL player of the month! Also today it was announced Villa manager Carla Ward is leaving the club. Whilst U17 team are in the more difficult group, U19 side got luckier, they'll start against hosts Lithuania on opening day. Actually only just realised U17 tournament starts this weekend. Squad announced Saturday morning apparently. Looks like BBC will broadcast the competition.
Chelsea confirm England international Fran Kirby will leave at the end of the season upon the expiry of her contract. #cfc— Emma Sanders (@em_sandy) May 4, 2024 England U17s head coach Natalie Henderson has named a 20-player squad for the WU17s Euros. You can watch all of England's games on the BBC. Leicester City’s Denny Draper misses out through injury and will be a big loss. Full squad below 👇🏴 pic.twitter.com/unVBDCylKH— Emma Sanders (@em_sandy) May 4, 2024 Ready for #U17WEURO! 👏Natalie Henderson has named her 20-strong squad for this summer's tournament in Sweden. 🏆— Lionesses (@Lionesses) May 4, 2024
I'm assuming Jane Oboavwoduo is related to Justin. She was a Goal machine in qualifying. I notice even without Draper, Leicester still have three players in the squad so their academy seems to be working. The other big absentee is Hobson who as you mentioned earlier is now the youngest scorer in WSL history. She's on the bench again today against Tottenham so assume Everton didn't want to release her. Given both Draper & Hobson are already featuring in WSL games perhaps they'll attend UEFA U19 tournament later in the summer.
She was very good. Dribbled past players like it was nothing and was classy on the ball. A rare style compared to what we have in the Lionesses senior camp. Junaid is another who I have not seen much of but she was encouraging too. This is the most impressive U17 women’s team I have seen. So many different attacking threats and the team play with intent at pace. It remains to be seen how the defence holds up (still not been tested enough). Maybe collectively they play a bit too kamikaze at times. Still, the differing types of attacking/creative threats make things very interesting.
Congratulations, @StanwayGeorgia! 🏆 https://t.co/HMIAUemPzW— Lionesses (@Lionesses) May 5, 2024 Congratulations to @keira_walsh and @LucyBronze! 🏆 https://t.co/4tzUCMZaax— Lionesses (@Lionesses) May 5, 2024 Our #YoungLionesses start their #U17WEURO group stage with an impressive win! 💪— Lionesses (@Lionesses) May 5, 2024
Looking at the extended highlights they completely dominated Norway. Norway looked very poor though, it has to be said.
The 2024 #AdobeWomensFACup Final has officially sold out! 🤩 @ManUtdWomen 🆚 @SpursWomen Who's joining us at @WembleyStadium on Sunday 12 May? 🏆— Adobe Women's FA Cup (@AdobeWFACup) April 25, 2024 Should be a good atmosphere. Harbert, Junaid & Vera Jones looked a very balanced midfield. The latter got substituted after half an hour against Norway, hopefully not ruled out of the tournament as she's arguably England's best player. Also have concerns about them defensively & tactically, obviously will be tested against hosts Sweden tomorrow & holders France on Saturday. At least technical level seems high. Oboavwoduo is youngest player at this tournament. There's only one other 2009 born and that is a Manchester United player who scored the winner for France in their opening game.
Vera Jones doesn’t make the bench for the Sweden game. Tough to lose two extremely key players in succession now (Draper and now Jones). Arguably our two most important options. Also Endacott isn’t on the bench. Still the team put out is very interesting. Norway got battered by France 8-0. Very unusual display. Almost every goal was an error and they got killed by a simple ball over the top for numerous goals. Either the keeper would come out of her box and not get the ball or the defender would misread the ball over the top for a French player to get the ball and finish