Postponement of English Super League games due to frozen pitches ‘unacceptable’

The main talking point from the English Super League over the weekend was the postponement of half the programme of games due to frozen pitches, highlighting the issue around them being played at smaller stadiums with no undersoil heating, rather than at clubs’ chief home grounds.

The greatest embarrassment for the league came with the Chelsea v Liverpool game which was being shown live by the BBC, the referee deeming the pitch unplayable six minutes in to the fixture, at which point it was abandoned.

Megan Campbell, who was in Liverpool’s line-up, was among those critical of the decision to ever start the game when the surface was clearly unplayable. “It is unacceptable for a game at this level to be called off in the manner in which it was,” she said, “for the safety of everyone, teams and fans, it needs to improve”.

For Republic of Ireland manager Vera Pauw, though, the chief concern from the weekend was probably the continuing lack of first-team football that her squad’s goalkeepers are getting, Courtney Brosnan and Grace Moloney once again left on the bench by Everton and Reading, respectively.

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Her third Super League goalkeeper, Megan Walsh, has been a mainstay for Brighton since joining them in 2019, but her place is now under threat after the club signed Australian Lydia Williams from Paris St-Germain last week.

Pauw will, at least, have been relieved to see Diane Caldwell get a rare enough start for Reading in their 1-0 defeat by Manchester United, but Izzy Atkinson is still struggling to get game time with West Ham, only coming on for the last 10 minutes of their 3-0 loss to Everton.

Better news came on Saturday with Ruesha Littlejohn making her comeback from injury for Aston Villa, having only played 45 minutes of football since September, coming on in the dying moments of their draw away to Manchester City.

And in the Championship, Eleanor Ryan-Doyle, on loan from Birmingham City, scored what proved to be the winner in Coventry’s 3-2 defeat of Crystal Palace, the first points Coventry picked up all season having lost their first 11 games.