Aston Villa sweep Barclays WSL player & manager of the month awards

Aston Villa have completed a clean sweep of the first Barclays WSL player and manager of the month awards this season, with Rachel Daly and Carla Ward winning the respective September prizes.

Now into their third year as a WSL club, Villa have been the surprise package at this early stage of the 2022/23 campaign, taking six points from a possible six in September.

They started off with the unenviable task of a visit from Manchester City on the delayed first weekend of the season, a team against whom they had never previously taken a point.

But they got off to a flying start through Alisha Lehmann, before summer signing Daly gave Villa a shock 2-0 lead, having also been involved in the opener. City actually scored three of their own without replay at that stage, but Ward’s team fought back rather than wilting under the pressure.

Kenza Dali got an equaliser, before Daly’s second of the match then won it for Villa.

Daly has been known as a full-back at international level with England in recent years and was starting left-back for the Lionesses at Euro 2022. But she had long established herself as a deadly attacker at club level in the United States and has been signed by Villa for that very purpose.

Having seen what she did to City, it was therefore little surprise when the 30-year-old added to her goal tally in Villa’s next WSL game against Leicester. This time it was from the penalty spot only a few minutes into a game that required a different kind of approach from Ward.

At the end of September, Villa were matching Arsenal and Manchester United with two wins from two games, as well as having the same number of points as Chelsea despite playing one game fewer.

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