New season, new faces
Rounding up a busy summer of moves for SUFC Women
I mentioned in the last newsletter how this summer had represented a bit of a blank slate for Jonathan Morgan’s squad: despite going full-time, no fewer than 10 players departed at the end of their previous contracts. However, United have wasted little time in filling those empty spots in the squad, bringing in 11 new faces over the summer with the latest, Ellie May, arriving just a few days ago.
In this post I’ll give an overview of all the ins and outs over the summer, plus those who’ve signed new contracts. I’ll also give a brief roundup of the new faces, but I wanted to particularly zero in on striker Jess Sigsworth, as one of the few players for whom there’s some performance data freely available (c’mon, stat providers – start logging data for the Women’s Championship please).
I’m intending to spotlight different players throughout the season, but for now, here’s the full breakdown of the ins and outs (last season’s appearances and goals stats via playmakerstats.com):
Out (10 players)
Courtney Sweetman-Kirk, forward (25 apps, 9 goals)
Alethea Paul, defender (27 apps, 0 goals)
Rhema Lord-Mears, midfielder (25 apps, 1 goals)
Ellie Wilson, defender (15 apps, 0 goals)
Nina Wilson, goalkeeper (4 apps)
Mia Enderby, forward (22 apps, 8 goals)
Georgia Walters, forward (21 apps, 3 goals)
Grace Riglar, defender (21 apps, 1 goal)
Maria Francis-Jones, forward (4 apps, 0 goals)
Naomi Hartley, defender (23 apps, 0 goals)
Two things that jump out here: the combined goals of Courtney Sweetman-Kirk and Mia Enderby (no other player in the squad scored more than four goals last season), and the high number of appearances for the majority of the players who’ve departed. Of the 10, only Maria Francis-Jones (a loanee from Man City) and Ellie and Nina Wilson were on the fringes of the first team (defender Ellie Wilson averaged just over 45 minutes per appearance; Nina Wilson was the third-choice keeper at the end of the season and spent time on loan at Wolves).
Overall, it’s a lot of first-team minutes that have moved on - six of the top 10 most-used players last season in terms of total minutes played, in fact, including three of the top five. I’ll hopefully keep you updated on how our ex-Blades are getting on at their new clubs through the course of this season, with many of them quickly finding new homes over the summer.
So, what did United do to address these departures? They made plenty of moves of their own, not just bringing in fresh faces but handing out new contracts to nine other players, many of whom had shone once Morgan took over as head coach:
New Deals (9 players)
Bex Rayner, forward (27 apps, 4 goals)
Charlotte Newsham, defender (27 apps, 2 goals)
Sophie Haywood, forward (15 apps, 3 goals)
Chene Muir, forward (22 apps, 0 goals)
Maddy Cusack, midfielder (23 apps, 2 goals)
Sophie Barker, midfielder (15 apps, 0 goals)
Rachel Brown, midfielder (15 apps, 0 goals)
Molly Graham, defender (6 apps, 0 goals)
Bethan Davies, goalkeeper (12 apps)
There’s lots of names here who could – possibly should – form the spine of the team in 2023/24, and a few others who could be set for a breakout year with the club committing to them as full-time prospects. Maddy Cusack is a midfield stalwart about to enter her sixth season in red and white, and Bex Rayner flourished when moved to more of a no.10 role later in the campaign, becoming the club’s all-time leader for assists in the process.
Player of the Season Charlotte Newsham – who played every minute of the Women’s Championship season in 2022/23 – moved from full back to centre-back last season and looks set to continue at the heart of defence this time round. And it could be a big year for Sophie Haywood, who joined from WSL side Aston Villa in 2022 but missed the bulk of the season with a knee injury – she returned to fitness for the run-in and bagged three in two games.
Two young players to watch: Molly Graham, who has been with the club since Under-13 level, signed her first pro contract this summer, with the teenager having started the final four games of last season in a centre-back partnership with Newsham. And striker Chene Muir – who is still only 17 – will hope to seize the opportunity of Enderby leaving. Don’t read too much into Muir’s record of 0 goals in 22 appearances last season, as she played just 777 minutes across those 22 games and was largely used as a substitute (no United player made more sub appearances in 2022/23).
United have also announced that two 17-year-old academy products – defenders Fallon Connolly-Jackson and Darcie Sugden-Brook – will become part of the first-team squad this season.
As well as securing the futures of these players, the club have freshened up the squad, adding a mix of players - many of whom have either worked with Jonathan Morgan before or won promotion from the Championship with other clubs:
In (11 players)
Fran Stenson, goalkeeper (11 apps)
Jodie Hutton, defender
Ashley Hodson, midfielder
Jess Sigsworth, forward
Tara Bourne, defender
Juliet Adebowale-Arimoro, forward
Isobel Goodwin, forward
Alanta Brown, midfielder
Olivia Page, midfielder
Ella Kinzett, midfielder
Ellie May, forward
Adebowale-Arimoro, Goodwin, Brown, Page, Kinzett and May are all younger players, most of whom are making their first foray at this level (although several, including Brown and Kinzett, worked with Jonathan Morgan last season at Burnley of the National League).
Jodie Hutton will be familiar to long-time viewers of United Women having scored two hat-tricks for Villa in two games against the Blades back in 2019, although she’s since moved into a defensive role. She won the Championship with Bristol City last year – her second promotion from this level.
Ashley Hodson also has a Championship promotion under her belt, winning the league with Liverpool in 2021/22 as part of over 100 appearances for the Reds. The 28-year-old spent last season on loan at Birmingham and brings a ton of experience to the squad.
Keeper Fran Stenson spent the second half of last season on loan with the Blades from WSL side Arsenal, and the 22-year-old will surely be the side’s number 1 this season. She’s not the only ex-Blade to join, with striker Jess Sigsworth returning to the club whose academy she played in back in 2011 and defender Tara Bourne completing a permanent move from Manchester United after a loan spell here two years ago.
Player spotlight: Jess Sigsworth
While Bourne looks like an exciting pickup – the 20-year-old was playing for England U23s as recently as twelve months ago – Sigsworth is probably the one I’m most intrigued to see due to her impressive CV. She was the top-scorer at this level in consecutive seasons in 2017/18 and 2018/19 with the Doncaster Belles and Manchester United. She then spent the next four seasons in the WSL with Manchester United and Leicester City, although the latter two were disrupted by injury.
She barely featured last season, but two years ago she was a solid WSL-level forward for Leicester City. A quick glance at her scouting report from that season via FBRef.com suggests she wasn’t much to write home about, but if you look deeper there’s plenty to be encouraged by here.
(For anyone not familiar with these – the bars represent the percentile that a player would occupy for each stat category, compared to other players in the league at that specific position. So here, for example, the number of tackles Sigsworth made per 90 minutes played compared to other forwards in the WSL was higher than 90% of all other forwards. We’re looking for lots of green, ideally).
While Sigsworth’s top-level attacking numbers were unimpressive, the wider context is that she was playing in one of the weaker sides in the 2021/22 WSL. Leicester had the second-lowest possession in the league that year (38.4%), avoiding relegation by just two points.
Not a great shock, then, to see that Sigsworth lagged behind the average for a WSL forward in metrics that involve getting on the ball: passes, touches, shots and goals (on the flipside, her defensive numbers were excellent – because the opposition had possession around two-thirds of the time).
Taking into account the fact that Sigsworth wasn’t seeing much of the ball, it’s pretty impressive what she was able to do with it: 2.08 shot-creating actions per game was right around league average, and 1.92 progressive carries (dribbling the ball up the pitch) was above average.
It’s not shown on the top-level scouting report above but the amount of shots she created off her own dribbling was in the 81st percentile. She was accurate with the relatively-few shots that she had, too, hitting the target with 44% of them – also in the 81st percentile of accuracy compared to other forwards.
Of course, this was two years ago – immediately before the injury sustained in February 2022. It’s a sample that covers just over 1,100 minutes – around 12 full games. But Sigsworth is only 28 years old, and now back playing at a level where she was an electric goalscorer on her last time in this tier. In a team that will hopefully have more of the ball than she saw at Leicester, and potentially make her a focal point up top now that Mia Enderby and Courtney Sweetman-Kirk have departed, the stage is set for Sigsworth to thrive again.
Charlton (A) – Sunday 28th August, 15:00 KO
We don’t have long to wait to see these players in action: the season kicks off this Sunday at the Valley against Charlton Athletic. Like United, Charlton have had some squad turnover during the summer, with six new signings joining a team that finished fourth in the Championship in 2022/23.
The Addicks played four times at the Valley last season, picking up 10 points from a possible 12 – so it should be a stiff challenge first up for the Blades.
Inconveniently, Sky have moved the men’s game with Man City to overlap this match– however, every game from the first two rounds of the Championship are available to stream live on the FA Player for free (hat-tip to the excellent women’s football writer Rich Laverty for the heads-up on that one) with full match replays watchable from midday on the day after a game. So, expect the next post once I’ve caught up on the game, having missed it live because I was watching Chris Basham nod in a late winner against Man City.
Thanks for reading, and come on you Blades!
Brilliant read, especially the last sentence.