useless

Carla Ward has done very well overall, first season with her we comfortably avoided relegation and established ourselves in the WSL, at that time we didn't have a lot of quality in the squad, our best players were probably Mayling and Hampton, our best attacker was Lehmann and she wasn't as good then as she is now, second season was our best season ever in pretty much every aspect, league placing, points total, goals scored, cup run, and this season has been our second best season ever by the same measures

I just hope we do a good job of replacing her, I would be fine with someone like Melisa Phillips, if we can get someone who's been more succesful and is a good fit even better, worry is we're no longer that bothered about the women's team and go for an uninspring cheap option, when Darren Carter left small heath for example and said he has other opportunities, I wondered if he could be coming to us, but as an assistant coach to Ward, I hope we would't appoint him as Head Coach

We've invested a lot in the academy so someone who's prepared to give them a chance might make sense, that's one area where Ward maybe could have done better, obviously if they're not good enough or ready they can't play, but the likes of Freya Gregory and McLoughlin who are proven to be good enough at WSL level could have played more, and at times this season when the bench has been so threadbare surely we could have put some of the U21s on there even if  just for the experience

Regardess of whether that specific rumour is true, I think we can take it as a given that there will be a lot of interest in him, from Championship clubs, and maybe even a few Premier League teams, so if we want to sell, I don't think we will have any problems in doing so, and should still get a decent fee, as clubs will see his goals as possibly being the difference between promotion or not

There's a rumour that MIddlesbrough are trying to do a deal for him and use the money we owe them for Rogers to part fund it

Technically our players will still be contracted to their loan clubs until June 1st, the loan can be cancelled but if that happens outside of a transfer window, they're not allowed to play for our first team, I could be wrong but I think they would be allowed to play for the academy, Dylan Mitchell played for our U18s in the week after his loan with Alverchurch ended last weekend.

Their 50 points would have been enough to keep them up in all but one of the last ten seasons. Reminds me of their last relegation from the Premier League, when they somehow managed to go down with 39 points

Funny that all these years they were desperate to get rid of their previous owners whilst just about avoiding relegation, and when they finally do get new owners that's when they go down.

Also cruel the way they've been relegated today, if I'd have known beforehand that they were going to beat Norwich I would never have thought they would still be relegated, as Plymouth, Blackburn, and Wednesday had such difficult games, for them all to win is quite something

Good win, and a good battling performance, put a lot of effort into that considering we have nothing to play for, and saw the game out really well to protect 1-0 lead

One positive of late has been how well Hanson has been playing looks back to her best, running past players with ease, with better finishing would have had a few more assists recently, unlucky with a shot against the post today

Ipswich winning 2-0 now, that looks like them promoted

We still need Norwich to score, if anything Hull losing might make Norwich relax even more

Southampton beating Leeds

Edit: Leeds equalize

Norwich have been very poor so far, slow passing between their defenders, and don't even look like they have much intention of hitting them on the break, they're just playing long balls, and they've all been over hit so far.

Good to see Lucy Parker back in the squad today

As above I would have thought the likes of Melissa Philips, Jo Potter, Remi Allen, maybe Vicky Jepson would be contenders, but if Monchi and Vidagany are making the final decision maybe will try and be more ambitious, I wonder if the likes of Laura Harvey or Casey Stoney would be out of our league, Harvey knows the region as spent about six years with small heath, linked with Chelsea recently but I don't think she's going there

1 hour ago, useless said:

Sheffield United didn't pay £18m, the agreed fee was supposedly £9m plus another £9m if they stay up

But even if we think of it as £18m, they still won't have paid that, as the agreement would be for the transfer to be paid in installments

So our buyback will be a percentage of whatever they gave us for the first installment

The talk on Sheffield United forum, is that they gave us £4.5m and our buyback is for three quarters of that

So it was essetially like a loan, and we might have even made a small profit, which i guess can be seen as like a loan fee

The £14m figure might make a degree of sense, as that's around three quarters of the reported £18m, but it's not taking into account, that they won't have given us that £18m in one go, or even half of it.

If the £4.5m figures is correct and the seventy-five percent buyback, then we will be paying £3.4m for him

It's pretty much guaranteed that Sheffield United would have been paying for him in installments, don't need 'ITK' or whatever to know that, it's just how transfers work, they will only have given us something like a quarter of the transfer fee, that is the first installment, so it just follows logically that we aren't going to be buying him back for £14m, that would give them around £10m profit

Also their CEO has spokeon on the subject and pretty much confirmed the above 'isn't far away from the truth', although he said he can't go into full details because of confidentiality reasons

Sheffield United didn't pay £18m, the agreed fee was supposedly £9m plus another £9m if they stay up

But even if we think of it as £18m, they still won't have paid that, as the agreement would be for the transfer to be paid in installments

So our buyback will be a percentage of whatever they gave us for the first installment

The talk on Sheffield United forum, is that they gave us £4.5m and our buyback is for three quarters of that

So it was essetially like a loan, and we might have even made a small profit, which i guess can be seen as like a loan fee

The £14m figure might make a degree of sense, as that's around three quarters of the reported £18m, but it's not taking into account, that they won't have given us that £18m in one go, or even half of it.

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.” 

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.