The Women’s season marches along, and with the men away to their respective international teams, Anfield is ready to host the Merseyside Derby with a team that is happy to take over. Liverpool Women host Everton on Sunday September 27th at 2pm BST after a come from behind win earlier in the week against Sunderland.
While only goalkeeper Khiara Keating and Kirsty Maclean were ruled out of that midweek match, they should be available on Sunday, but there is a host of others that coach Gareth Taylor feels just aren’t ready for the intensity of a derby.
“We’ll see how the next 24 hours go,” Taylor said in his pre-match press conference.
“[Mao] Itamura, Lucy Parry, Mari Ward, this is a bit too soon for them. I think anything up until the international break is going to be too soon for them. So, I think they’ll be back after the international break and I think that’s a good opportunity for us to get them really ready for that period afterwards.
“Ceri and Anna will be a little bit longer unfortunately. But the good news is that Kirsty is back in team training and so is Khiara. They were two that we couldn’t use in midweek – whether we wanted to or not – so that’s really good to have them back.”
Marie Höbinger has been making a successful return from her ACL injury last season, with two goals in 60 minutes against Sunderland, but managing that recovery and some of the other soreness is front of mind for Taylor.
“A few sore limbs because I think that was the first 90 for a few, first 60 for Marie [Höbinger],” Taylor continued.
“Fortunately Marie was able to train today. Going back to her, that’s still a delicate situation with her in a sense of building up her load to be able to be the best version of herself.
“Sara Agrez unfortunately wasn’t able to train today but we think that’s going to be a quick turnaround and she’ll be back in training tomorrow.”
Unfortunately Liverpool Women don’t have a great track record when it comes to these derbies at Anfield, so all focus will be on hopefully breaking whatever curse was put on them, and some of those missing players will only make it harder.