Slegers Confirms Emily Fox Unlikely to Feature Against Manchester United
Arsenal Women head coach Renee Slegers has delivered an important injury update on defender Emily Fox – and it’s not great news for the Gunners ahead of the big Subway Women’s League Cup semi-final showdown with Manchester United at Mangata Developments Stadium (Meadow Park) on Jan 21st, with a 7pm kick-off.
Fox had to be taken off early in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Aston Villa in the Women’s FA Cup on Sunday – she’d been clouting her head in an aerial challenge and looked like she was in some pain.
To be honest, it looked pretty nasty, and was forced to leave the pitch just 22 minutes into the game, making way for January signing Smilla Holmberg.
Emily Fox Won’t Be Available For Manchester United – At Least Not For Now
Slegers revealed that despite a good assessment over the last couple of days, Fox is unlikely to be ready for the high-pressure League Cup tie.
“We assessed her yesterday and today, and we just want to make really good decisions with Foxy,” Slegers explained. “It’s looking likely she won’t be in the squad tomorrow, and then we will assess her again tomorrow and the day after. That’s where we’re at now with Foxy.”
This is a big blow for Arsenal, as Fox has been a rock for the team this season, starting every one of their 12 Barclays Women’s Super League matches.
With her out, the door is now open for Holmberg to show her stuff against United – and Slegers is hopeful that Fox will be back in time for the massive WSL clash with Chelsea on Sat, Jan 24th.
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Updates on Leah Williamson and Daphne van Domselaar
Slegers gave a encouraging update on other key players too.
Daphne van Domselaar is finally back – she’d been out since that crazy 2-1 win over Real Madrid on November 19, and is now ready to go for the Manchester United game.
Meanwhile Leah Williamson has a calf injury and is making good progress but she’s just not quite ready to be considered yet.”Leah is not in that place yet but she is progressing really well,” Slegers said. “We’ll see (for Chelsea), I think that will come too soon as well but we’ll see how she progresses.”
Busy, Busy Arsenal – In for a Treat
Arsenal have got a real treat coming up – a run of super exciting matches across the board. That includes that League Cup semi against Manchester United, the big WSL clash with Chelsea, and some killer UEFA Women’s Champions League action in the not-too-distant future.
Slegers is actually quite stoked about it”It’s exciting. We’ve just played in the FA Cup, going into the League Cup tomorrow, after that it’s WSL and after that we’ll play in the Champions Cup so it’s different competitions all coming after each other and it’s very exciting.”
She put in an extra thought, “We are very aware that in this block we can win our first trophy in the Champions Cup so we’re taking steps closer to trophies and it’s driving us, the players are aware of it but tomorrow it’s the League Cup and we really look forward to the game against United.”
Arsenal are going to be hoping to get through to the final of the League Cup and keep the momentum going – then it’s on to the real prize – a bit of silverware this season.
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Slegers Confirms Emily Fox Unlikely to Feature Against Manchester United
