Arsenal Women’s Caitlin Foord sparked injury concerns when she was taken off after 54 minutes as a precaution, during Arsenal Women’s Continental Cup victory against London City Lionesses. Foord was then only given seven minutes in Arsenal’s SOLD-OUT WSL victory against Manchester United, where her upper leg looked heavily strapped.
Arsenal have 3 Matilda’s on international duty at the moment – Caitlin Foord, Steph Catley & Kyra Cooney-Cross but 29-year-old Foord was replaced by San Diego Wave’s new recruit and national team debutant Kaitlyn Torpey in Australia’s starting XI during their 3-0 victory over Uzbekistan.
Matilda’s boss Tony Gustavsson said the newest Matilda debuted in the Olympic qualifier in front of WSL star Foord due to load limitations.
“As you saw we did some changes, we planned for 90-minute games as always with a strong starting line-up and a strong finishing line-up,” Gustavsson said post-match.
“Torpey got the opportunity to start due to a couple of reasons, one she’s been phenomenal in training and has shown that she can adjust to our tempo.
“But also, Caitlin Foord came in with a little bit of overload and a niggle, we wanted to make sure that she didn’t play more than 45 [minutes] today. So that’s why we started Caitlin on the bench and Torpey as a starter.”
Foord looked great when she did come onto the pitch, scoring the Matilda’s 3rd goal against their opponents:
86′ Foord nods in our third of the day
🇺🇿 0-3 🇦🇺#UZBvAUS#Matildas #TilitsDone #AllezAUS #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/YmT578hcEi
— CommBank Matildas (@TheMatildas) February 24, 2024
Hopefully Caitlin will return to the Arsenal fold in good form, and uninjured. It does raise the question of player-loading though..
- Foord has played 1081 minutes out of 1260 minutes available in the WSL, resting for just 179 minutes in Arsenal’s 14 games so far.
- In the Women’s FA Cup, Foord played 154 minutes of 180 minutes available in Arsenal’s two matches.
Best of luck to our Matilda’s and we look forward to welcoming you back, fighting-fit and ready to go against arch North London rivals Tottenham on 3rd March!
Do you have any worries about player-loading Gooners?
Michelle M
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