Manchester United defender Aoife Mannion made her return to the pitch when the Reds capped off their warm winter training camp in Malta with a fixture against Champions Birkirkara FC at Hibernians Stadium.
As the only name on United’s injury list, she has worked hard to return to fullly-integrated training with the Women’s Super League side in November. And while she was a named sub in the final League cup action against Sheffield United, it was understood the 27-year-old had to wait until the new year to get valuable playing time.
Finally, the time came as she was named in the starting XI alongside regulars Ona Batlle and Maya Le Tissier in the back line. Mannion said: “It was so good today, obviously the scoreline was brilliant, I think it ended 10-0. For me personally, it was my first minutes after my ACL [Anterior Cruciate Ligament] injury.
“I got the first 45 [minutes] so I got a good warm-up in and to be fair the pitch being good, the atmosphere being good, it's been personally really good for me.”
Mannion continued with how she is looking forward to the second half of the season to commence, especially since being out of action since March of last year when she was ruled out with an ACL injury for the second time in her career.
Her original injury came in October 2019 in her Champions League Clash against Atletico Madrid shortly after arriving at Manchester City. Only to re-injure the same right knee in the League Cup clash against Chelsea just 27 months after tearing it for the first time around.
After a gruelling eight months of rehabilitation, she is back in action for the Reds to continue their league campaign with full-team selection - the club Physio has no other current injuries to deal with, as it stands, compared to other teams in the top tier, Aston Villa and Arsenal are suffering with an extensive injury lists.
Looking ahead to her participation in the squad for the remainder of the season, as they host Liverpool in their first WSL game of 2023, Mannion told the Times of Malta Sports Desk: “We were pleased with the score line, this game is the only friendly before we head back into our league campaign next week.
“Obviously we’ve been thinking about Birkirkara but in the back of our minds we’ve also had Liverpool in our head as well.”
Manchester United vs Liverpool kicks off at 2.05pm January 15 at Leigh Sports Village.
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