Manchester United carried on their unbeaten start to the Women's Super League season on Saturday when the Reds won 2-0 away to Aston Villa.
And United manager Casey Stoney was full of praise for 21-year old forward Ella Toone after the match, whose long-range lob notched United's second of the game and Toone's fifth in all competitions this season.
“She just grows.” she said, “She just goes from strength to strength week in week out, you know, and it's credit to her - she used the lockdown period, she went away and she worked really hard on her physicality.
“She's come back in, [her] game intelligence is very good. The way she uses the ball is excellent. You know, I thought she was, again, very good, [it was a] good performance from her.
“So, you know, she knew she needed to tidy up from the first half in terms of the turnover in possession. I thought [that] second half she was excellent.
“So yeah, it’s praise to her. She listened. She's very hardworking, very coachable, and she's producing performances because of it.”
In a week where the issue of concussions has been at the fore of discussion after last weekend’s collision between Raul Jimenez and David Luiz, Jackie Groenen was brought off the pitch in the eleventh minute with a head injury.
“She took a knock to the head and the doctor deemed that it wasn't safe for her to carry on,” Stoney confirmed. “I’ll always make a decision in regards to player safety, so we have to take her off and we had to make a change.
“I'm a very fortunate head coach when I can bring someone like Lucy Staniforth off the bench who can come on and play for us.”
United States international Christen Press was not in the squad for the game and has not been in training recently, currently suffering from an illness.
“She’s been poorly.” the United head coach said “She's not been in training for the last couple of days. So it's just about her. We're just trying to look after her and get her healthy again.“
