Dan Bardell thrilled after Aston Villa Women manager development: ‘I’m glad there was no panic’
We’re delighted to welcome Sky Sports journalist Dan Bardell as our exclusive Aston Villa columnist as each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the club…
Dan Bardell is glad that Aston Villa Women didn’t “panic” and Carla Ward’s position as manager didn’t come under threat despite the “turbulent” start to the season.
Villa had an excellent campaign last year as they finished fifth in the WSL after England international Rachel Daly scored 22 goals in as many games.
But they surprisingly lost their first five games of this season before picking up back-to-back victories over Bristol City and West Ham in their past two matches.
Bardell is pleased there was “no talk” of Ward being sacked as he believes the Villans boss is a “brilliant manager” and a “fascinating character”.
Speaking exclusively to Villa News, Bardell said: “It’s been a really turbulent start to the season for Villa Women. They have been really unfortunate because it’s easy in football to get caught up in a rut and they’ve been really unfortunate with some of the games that they’ve lost.
“The confidence obviously took a bit of a dent, they were heavily relying on Rachel Daly’s goals last season and she’s not been hitting the net at quite the same ratio. But I’ve every confidence now that they’ve kind of got the monkey off their back, they will start to win games, move up the table and still finish somewhere near where they did last season.
“I guess the disappointing thing is that some of the big teams they lost to, they competed in those games last season and beat some of those teams. If you’re looking like for like in terms of results against the teams they faced last season, they’re probably down on where they were.
“They finished fifth and I’m sure they would’ve had ambitions to finish higher than that this season. But I’m glad there was no panicking and no talk of Carla Ward losing her job. I really like Carla, I’ve got a lot of time for her, she’s a brilliant manager and she’s actually a great person to spend time with as well.
“She’s a fascinating character and the way she talks about football is really interesting, so you can see why she’s one of the highest-rated managers in the WSL. I’m glad there was no panic, the team seem very together.”
In other Aston Villa news, a journalist is thrilled after a better-late-than-never development has emerged.