It is, naturally, impossible to predict how influential the players who arrived in January will be for their new Women’s Super League teams, especially when there are so many added variables to this topsy-turvy season, but that will not stop us trying.
At the top end of our fictional winners’ list are Everton. Willie Kirk’s side sit fifth in the WSL having fallen away, in part because of injuries to two key summer signings, the striker Valérie Gauvin and defender Rikke Sevecke, after a blistering start. Their winter business looks to have been as smart as their summer business.
The forward Claire Emslie is their only permanent addition, her loan turned into an 18-month contract, but loans for the experienced England midfielder Jill Scott and West Ham’s Alisha Lehmann could help them close the gap to the top four.
Both loan players have a point to prove. Scott needs minutes to show she can still perform consistently at the top level, having slipped down the pecking order at Manchester City with the arrival of the US World Cup winner Sam Mewis. Lehmann has an opportunity to show she is deserving of a contract with a team battling at the top of the table rather than the bottom.
When Carla Ward took charge of Birmingham City she had two weeks to rebuild a squad after the club haemorrhaged players. Her group didn’t reach double figures. Some Christmas Eve-esque shopping meant Birmingham could field a team when the season kicked off, but that testing start makes what Ward has achieved all the more remarkable. They are eighth, with three wins from 10 games compared with two from the 13 they played in the last, curtailed campaign where they narrowly avoided relegation.
The forward Veatriki Sarri has been poached from Ward’s former team Sheffield United, who play in the Championship. Ruesha Littlejohn joins from another second-tier side, Leicester City. Loan signings of the young Chelsea duo Jamie-Lee Napier and Emily Murphy, as well as Georgia Brougham from Everton, strengthen the squad and add exciting quality.
Aston Villa join Everton and Birmingham as transfer window winners for the signing of Japan’s Mana Iwabuchi alone. The 2011 World Cup-winning forward – a target of Arsenal this time last year – scored then assisted a 90th-minute leveller in her third game, against Reading.
Completing our fictional top four are Tottenham. With Under a new manager, Rehanne Skinner, their most important business was perhaps the permanent signings of the loanees Alanna Kennedy and Shelina Zadorsky from Orlando Pride. Taking the West Ham midfielder Cho So-hyun and Manchester United centre-back Abbie McManus on loan will help provide balance to a team lacking top-level experience.
Our transfer window loser list begins with Reading, who made no moves. Kelly Chambers’s side are two points behind fifth-placed Everton but have played two games more games than Kirk’s team. Chambers has a good squad on paper, but with two wins in their past 12 games in all competitions it is hard not to feel that new faces were would have helped reinvigorate the team on and off the pitch.
Brighton, currently ninth of 12 in the WSL, are four points ahead of bottom-placed Bristol City but have played a game more and two more than West Ham (10th) and Villa (11th). They have picked up just one point since November. The extension of Lee Geum-min’s loan from Manchester City will be welcome but with four players out Hope Powell’s lack of action in the market is surprising.
Arsenal complete our list of transfer window losers. The return of the defender Anna Patten from the University of North Carolina is welcome for them and they have a strong squad on paper, but with the injury record of Joe Montemurro’s team in recent years and the side fourth, it is disappointing for the fans to have not seen more movement.
What of the rest? It is hard to fault the top two in the WSL, Chelsea and Manchester United. They too have not done much, but they are level at the top, United having played a game more. Their form and depth are testament to good summer business.
Emma Hayes’s most important business at Chelsea was new contracts for the versatile Norwegian Maren Mjelde and club captain Magda Eriksson. For United, Casey Stoney’s acquisition of the defender Maria Thorisdóttir from Chelsea is a very shrewd: she has brought in a proven winner frustrated with a lack of playing time.
Manchester City’s only recruit, US World Cup winner Abby Dahlkemper, solves a problem area on the pitch for Gareth Taylor. With Gemma Bonner seemingly out of favour, left-back Alex Greenwood has featured alongside Steph Houghton. Dahlkemper is a more natural partner for Houghton and her two-and-a-half-year deal, the longest of any of the US superstars playing in the WSL, is a statement.
West Ham’s new manager, Olli Harder, has bought in Iceland’s Dagny Brynjarsdottir and University of North Carolina’s Lois Joel but the loss of Cho and Lehmann and the departure of the England forward Rachel Daly, who returns to Houston, cannot be good for them.
Finally, Bristol City have brought in some decent players on loan but the loss of Australia’s Chloe Logarzo will likely be keenly felt.
