useless

I imagine Melissa Phillips will be one of the favorites

I had thought Jo Potter might be another contender should Ward leave, has done very well in her first season as manager with Rangers, but recently signed a new contract with them

Remi Allen could be another contender, having done okay with London City Lionesses as interim manager, and is also now coaching with England U23s

Aston Villa Women can confirm that Manager Carla Ward has decided to step down from her post at the end of the season.

Carla said: “To step down from my post here at Aston Villa has been the hardest decision of my managerial career, but I know it is the right one for my family and I. Managing a great club like Aston Villa has been a full-throttle job and I have always given the role 100 per cent dedication. However, I now believe it is the right time for me to prioritise the other important things - such as my daughter and the rest of my family life. I am immensely grateful to Monchi and Damian Vidagany who tried so hard to encourage me to stay in the role, but I know it is the right time to step down after our last game of the season.” 

The quotes on the official site are interesting, she's saying she wants to take a break from the game to spend more time with her family, which makes sense given some of her recent comments about not being able to spend enough time with her daughter. Also interesting to see that Monchi tried to convince her to stay, and Vidagany calling her on of the best managers in the game, so they obviously didn't want her to go, although now that she is hopefully it works out the best for everyone, this season has been difficult, and Ward has played a part in that, but overall she's done a very good job for us

Going to be interesting to see who comes in now

Carla Ward leaving at the end of the season

When Arsenal bid for him the last time that was before he had a massve upturn in form, so that's not really reflective of how much he's worth now, as his game has since moved to another level. He's not best midfielder in the league and probably not worth £100m as was claimed, or more important to us than Grealish was which was also claimed, but he's still a very good midfielder, just going through a difficult spell, if he was to leave us, hopefully he doesn't, would likely end up somewhere like Arsenal, or Liverpool, and they would pay a significant sum for him, he's still top rated, a few tired performances in difficult circumstances don't change that

John McGinn made a great point, we can come back from two goals down against them, as we showed in last night's game, we did in the space of around twenty minutes, in the second-leg we will have a whole ninety minutes to do it, we just havet to avoid giving away silly goals, with Martinez in goal maybe we will have a chance

Sophia Poor has been nominated for WSL Player of the Month, she won't win it, but to be considered is a great acknowledgement for how well she did all things considered.

I wouldnt be surprised to see us bring in Fenton Heard from West Brom as an Azaz style signing, out of contract in the summer, but a good player, and a Villa fan

Kevin Mfuamba is another of theirs I've long thought could end up with us, kind of DM our academy teams have been missing  whilst also being decent on the ball, he's a couple of years younger though, and under contract, so would cost a fee

Iddrisa Amihere and and Max Jenner might be ones to look out for from their U16s too, maybe they will go elsewhere, but have a feeling we will making a number of first year scholar signings again

If Postecoglou is fired then he will have been the victim of his own success, at the start of season many were predicting them to drop into midtable, even their fans seem to be accepting of the fact that this would be a transitional season whilst he changed their style, but because of him doing bette than expected the perception has changed and suddenly not getting top four is seen as a failure

That's not to say he's not without fault, maybe in the long-run he won't be a brilliant manager for them, but based on what he's done so far would be harsh to sack him, and not sure they could attract someone who would do much better with their current squad

He's done better than I was expecting

If we could have just got one more goal to make it 4-3 rather than 4-2 then I would have thought we would have a good chance, as we showed last night that we're more than capable of causing them problems, us scoring three or four past them in the second-leg really isn't beyond the realms of possibility, the part that's more difficult to conceive of as a possibility is us stopping them from scoring, we're not withoug hope but it's going to be difficult, going to have to have a perfect game, defence and keeper not allowing anything past them, midfield controlling the game better to relieve pressure on defence, and the attack to take their chances

Kamara being injured has proven to be a big problem for us, as he was the only specialist DM we have, and as such without him Luiz isn't able to fully focus on playing as he was previous to Kamara's injury. I thought it was a strage decision to let Dendoncker go without a replacement, Iroegbunam isn't that replacement as he's a completely different type of midfielder. When we bring in a new DM, I'm sure we will start seeing the best of Douglas Luiz again, or whoever is playing in midfield. I also think we miss Jacob Ramsey more than is sometimes realized, not just for his attacking play, but for the general midfield work he gets through helping out up and down that left hand side, with Ramsey and Kamara, in the team especially kamara, the we see a better Luiz. It's not just Luiz it affects but also McGinn, as without a specialist DM, he also sometimes has to have a different role, so Kamara being out has cumulative effect all over the pitch

We could well already have enough points for top four, if Spurs lose to both Liverpool and Manchester City, which is certainly possible, then they can't catch us.

He made a few bad passes when he came on, which was frustrating to say the least given the circumstances, although he wasn't the only one, after that he settled into it a little more, that burst forward with the ball which lead to Digne crossing opportunity, was pretty much his trademark first half of last season, he does it so well, put him in a team where he's not expected to be the main DM, and has some license to get forward and he will do well

One of the most frustrating games I've seen, everything seemed to go against us, but also we were very poor, at times it looked like they had an extra player, and we kept making mistakes. At 4-2 I was thinking if we could get one more then we might have a chance in the second-leg with Martinez in goal, as no matter what I think we're capable of scoring a number of goals past them, it's just a case of stopping them from scoring past us, but with them having a two goal advantage it's going to be very difficult

Maybe too much over confidence before the game, it was never going to be easy regardless of how good or bad they are, in this competition we've struggled against Mostar twice, lost to Legia, Ajax could have beat us at their ground if not for Martinez, the likes of Everton and Stevenage have knocked us out of cup competitions in recent times, Sheffield United took a point off us at Villa Park, we can't take it for granted we will beat any team, least not Olympiakos who are actually decent

So so very sad, as the thing that was making this season so wonderful was the idea that we could actually win a trophy for the first time in twenty-seven years, but now that's almost gone, we've thrown it away, and who knows when we will come this close again

Sick to death of seeing people blame Alisha Lehmann for his bad form, it really isn't a good look, she's got nothing to do with it, and this idea that he plays badly when he is dating her isn't true either, as previously when they were dating he was in very good form, and people were making comments in here about that, whether he's playing good or bad is nothing to do with her

The tall player in midfield for us was Farid Addey, who was playing in a U14 tournament a month or so back, so despite looking like he could be playing for our U21s, he might actually be one of the younger players they took. Things didn't quite run for him today, but I think he's actually one of the highly rated ones, in aforementoned U14 tournament he looked very good, and was in one of the recent England U15 training camps

David Wagner as said 'We like to win and end as high as we can. We are not mathematically safe (in the playoffs). We will go strong.'

Will Still has left Reims, wants a job in England, is being linked with Sunderland

Lost 1-0, tough first half, was basically their attack against our defence, did better second half, unlucky not to get an equalizer in the end, although could have scored another as well.

They looked older and stronger than us, some of them looked like they could be playing U21, or even first team football, we sent a U15 squad, so they probably were older, also their 'gamesmanship' was ridiculous considering it's only a friendly tournament for development

Today was a tough game, but Cronin-McGrath did well when he was able to get on the ball and has looked a very good in the other two games I saw, to be fair they all showed good promise at times, as you would expect, I think we will be seeing a number of them playing an age up for our U18s at some point next season

Semi-final against Panathinaikos is about to kick-off

We play Panathinaikos FC in the semi-final tomorrow, the other semi-final is Olympiacos FC against Inter Academy Georgia, final is also tomorrow, so our academy and first team could both end up playing Olympiacos on the same day

Howe, O'Neill, Edwards, Frank, Moyes and even Iraola, all have their teams playing a style of football not too dissimilar to Dyche, could probably add Nuno to those as well. If Southy gets a PL job he will be another in that vein.

It doesn't really matter what Norwich would prefer in the semi-final, they've got no choice but to go for a win on Saturday, as whilst it's unlikely they would drop out of the top six with a loss, it's not exactly beyond the realms of possibility either, so they just can't risk it, they have to try and win.

Beat APOEL 3-0, Lennon Moss and Markie Meade twice with the goals