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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Anita Asante

Battling relegation can feel suffocating – but it made me a better person

Anita Asante (right) takes on Arsenal's Beth Mead
Anita Asante’s Aston Villa stand firm against Arsenal and save themselves from relegation in 2021. Photograph: SPP Sport Press Photo/Alamy

We talk a lot about pressure at the top of a league but the stress involved at the bottom is on a different scale entirely.

It’s something I learned after joining Aston Villa in the summer of 2020. Villa were newly promoted to the Women’s Super League and, at the age of 35, I had just left Chelsea after two seasons interrupted first by a serious knee injury I sustained playing for England and then the Covid-19 pandemic.

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