No Irish player had a more emotionally – and physically – draining weekend than Katie McCabe

With 22 of the players she named in her 26-strong squad on Thursday in action for their clubs at the weekend, Republic of Ireland manager Eileen Gleeson would have been holding her breath waiting for updates on any injury issues in advance of the Euro 2025 qualifying games against France on Friday and England on Tuesday week.

For now, Niamh Fahey would appear to be the only member of that squad likely to be unavailable for the games, the Liverpool captain’s manager Matt Beard having said last week that she would be out “for a few weeks” with a calf injury. And Fahy was absent from Liverpool’s squad for their 4-1 Women’s Super League defeat by Manchester City on Saturday.

No Irish player had a more emotionally – and physically – draining weekend than Katie McCabe. She collected the third League Cup winners medal of her Arsenal career on Sunday when her side beat Chelsea in extra-time in front of a record crowd of 21,462 for the competition at Molineux.

[ Eileen Gleeson to opt for pragmatism in formidable qualifying campaign ]

By then, though, there was the trauma for all concerned after Arsenal’s Frida Maanum collapsed off the ball towards the end of normal time – McCabe alerted the officials to her team-mate’s predicament. Mercifully, after Maanum was attended to by a team of medics and stretchered off the pitch wearing an oxygen mask, the news was that she was stable. The game continued, McCabe going off in extra-time with cramp.

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If Gleeson opts to go with three center backs for the upcoming games, Louise Quinn and Caitlin Hayes are probably going to fill two of those slots. Quinn got another 90 minutes under her belt after her recent shoulder injury in Birmingham’s 3-1 Championship defeat by Charlton, while Hayes was on the scoresheet yet again for Celtic in their 2-1 win away to Glasgow City, a result that lifted them to within a point of Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premier League table. Her header from a corner brought her league tally to 11 goals.

Aoife Mannion started her first game for Manchester United since April of last year in their 4-1 win over Everton; squad newcomer Anna Patten maintained her ever-present status for Aston Villa in their 2-2 draw with Leicester; Diane Caldwell started for FC Zurich in a 1-0 win over FC Rapperswil-Jona that keeps their Swiss title-winning hopes alive; and Jessie Stapleton was in the Reading line-up that lost 4-1 at home to Tyler Toland’s Blackburn Rovers – that quartet will, most probably, battle it out for that third spot in the Irish defence.

And Amber Barrett will report for international duty with a spring in her step after scoring twice for Standard Liege against Brugge on Saturday, making it 14 goals for the season for the Donegal woman, a result that boosts her and Claire O’Riordan’s hopes of ending the campaign as Super League winners.