Teenager Ruby Mace will come up against her parent club Arsenal today (Sunday) when the Gunners face Birmingham City.
Mace joined the Midlands side on a dual registration with Arsenal’s academy in the January transfer window and has been given permission to participate in the match.
“I know there's a sort of coaches' ethical agreement that they don't play against the team that they've been loaned out from,” said head coach Joe Montemurro on Saturday.
“It wasn't really a difficult decision for me, Ruby is out on loan for a purpose, she's out on loan to get game time and to play against the best teams possible.
“She'll get valuable experience playing against us, so, from my perspective, it's a win-win for all of us. She gets the minutes of football and more importantly, she gets that development that we need to bring her back.”
At Birmingham, Mace has primarily been used in the centre of defence, whereas she is often a midfielder at Arsenal.
Montemurro, however, does not mind the difference as he still thinks it will develop the necessary areas of her game.
“It was quite an interesting one because when we were approached, or when we were looking at Birmingham, they were looking for a centre-half and we know she'd played there with the junior national team so she's very, very comfortable in that position,” he added.
“We still consider her in the midfield role but I think the type of midfielder that she is, she's probably going to be more of a creative, structural and building the play sort of midfielder. For her to be playing and have that responsibility as a centre-back at Birmingham suits us fine.
“From my perspective, she's going to be put in positions where she's going to be under pressure and it's valuable for us and we think she'll mature really, really quickly playing in that position.”
