With the English Women’s Super League season getting up and running this weekend, starting with champions Chelsea’s Friday evening meeting with Aston Villa, Eileen Gleeson will have her entire complement of foreign-based Republic of Ireland players back in competitive action after their summer break. Between now and the Euro 2025 play-off games against Georgia in a month’s time the manager will be beseeching the heavens that they stay injury-free and get a decent amount of game-time under their belts.
For all the summer’s speculation about moves involving some of her key players, notably Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan, just three of the 30 Gleeson has capped so far have started the season with new clubs – Megan Connolly (Bristol City to Lazio), Jessie Stapleton (West Ham to Sunderland on loan) and Erin McLaughlin (Peamount United to Portsmouth).
McCabe, a transfer target for Chelsea early last year, had been linked with a move to French champions Lyon, while O’Sullivan was said to have been on Manchester United’s wish list as the expiry of her North Carolina Courage contract approached. But McCabe hasn’t budged and is now closing in on a decade with Arsenal, while O’Sullivan signed a new two-year contract with Courage, which made her the club’s highest paid player.
No upheaval for them, then, nor for three of Gleeson’s Merseyside-based players, Everton’s Courtney Brosnan and Liverpool’s Niamh Fahey and Leanne Kiernan, all of whom had their contracts extended.
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But it was the most bittersweet of summers for West Ham’s Jess Ziu, who signed a new deal with the club in June, only to suffer her second anterior cruciate ligament injury in less than two years in a preseason friendly in August. It was the cruellest of blows for the 22-year-old Dubliner who had just begun to establish herself in Gleeson’s side, starting in the last four games.
While Ziu is unlikely to feature at all in the new season, she is one of 15 Republic of Ireland players earning their keep at WSL clubs. – that’s two up on the start of the last campaign, although last season’s tally did briefly rise to 15 when Aston Villa’s Anna Patten declared for Ireland and Manchester City signed teenager Tara O’Hanlon from Peamount, but then it dropped again when Megan Campbell left Everton for London City Lionesses and Stapleton joined Reading on loan.
Bristol City’s relegation saw Connolly move on to a new adventure in Serie A, while Chloe Mustaki is still with the club and nearing full fitness again after yet more injury woes in the last campaign. Meanwhile, Crystal Palace’s promotion from the Championship brings Hayley Nolan, Izzy Atkinson and Abbie Larkin into the WSL, Atkinson returning to the top flight having played there with West Ham before her move across London last January.
While the trio might have been impressed with their club’s ambition during the summer, when they signed 10 players, including eight senior internationals, they might wonder how that overhaul will impact their playing time this season. With any luck, they’ll feature as heavily as they did in their promotion-winning campaign, Nolan – desperate to add to her three senior caps – playing every minute of every game.
That’s the usual worry, though: it’s all fine and dandy being on the books of a WSL club, but if you’re on the bench week in, week out – or worse, not in the squad at all – then that won’t do a whole lot for your international prospects. When McLaughlin signed for Portsmouth and Ellen Molloy joined Sheffield United during the summer, both Championship sides, there was probably an eyebrow wiggle or two back home about them not signing for bigger clubs, so highly regarded are the pair. But they’ll be close enough to guaranteed first-team football and will have the chance to show their worth – and, hopefully, move on to bigger things.
Teenagers O’Hanlon and Eve O’Carroll will find it tougher to get game-time at Manchester City, where the squad is sprinkled with some of the biggest names in the women’s game. O’Carroll, an under-17 international, did at least make City’s bench for Wednesday’s Champions League trip to Paris FC, while O’Hanlon, given her senior debut by Vera Pauw in 2023, is being eased back in to action by the club after last year’s hamstring tear.
Elsewhere, Saoirse Noonan has kick-started her time at Celtic in fine style after her move there from Durham, the highlight thus far her hat-trick against Finland’s KuPS in their Champions League qualifying game.
Keep your Irish eyes on Standard Liege too – they now have three Irish players in their squad, Aoife Colvill joining from Glasgow City during the summer to team up with Amber Barrett and Claire O’Riordan.
And apart from home-based players, there’s a sizeable Irish crew in the English Championship and Scotland, plus Connolly in Italy, Diane Caldwell in Switzerland, and O’Sullivan, Kyra Carusa, Marissa Sheva and Emily Murphy in the United States. If Gleeson scouts them all, her air miles will go through the roof.
Republic of Ireland players in the WSL: Katie McCabe (Arsenal); Anna Patten (Aston Villa); Hayley Nolan, Izzy Atkinson, Abbie Larkin (Crystal Palace); Courtney Brosnan, Heather Payne (Everton); Niamh Fahey, Leanne Kiernan (Liverpool); Aoife Mannion (Manchester United); Tara O’Hanlon, Eve O’Carroll (Manchester City); Jess Ziu, Megan Walsh, Jessie Stapleton (on loan at Sunderland) (West Ham).
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