A blockbuster Old Trafford meeting with Paris Saint-Germain looms in the imminent future for Manchester United Women, but the focus of Marc Skinner’s team is firmly on securing three points in our one prior outing, Saturday’s important league clash at home to Aston Villa.
Here is everything you need to know before we welcome the Villans to Leigh…
HOW TO WATCH AND FOLLOW
Tickets for the early kick-off are available to buy here, along with coach travel from Old Trafford to the Progress With Unity Stadium.
If you cannot make it to Leigh, the game will be live to watch on Sky Sports+ for supporters in the UK, while global radio commentary on ManUtd.com is another way to keep up with the action.
Our dedicated United Women account on X will also have rolling matchday updates, while there will be details fed into the United App on an action-packed Saturday lunchtime, with the club’s men and Under-18s also playing.
For United, defender Hannah Blundell was a welcome returnee at Brighton last weekend. The popular full-back played her first senior minutes since May 2024, after giving birth earlier this year, and could build on that proud appearance on Saturday.
There were no fresh updates on Leah Galton and Celin Bizet Donnum in Marc’s pre-match press conference, after the pair missed the trip to the south coast with illness and an ongoing back injury respectively, so it remains to be seen whether they will be available.
Centre-back Millie Turner, meanwhile, is expected to be out until the new year with a knee injury.
For Villa, ex-United midfielder Lucy Staniforth features on a list of recent absentees, having been sidelined as far back as April with an ankle issue. Jill Baijings (knee), Chasity Grant (head), Maya Hijikata (ankle), Gabi Nunes (back) and Paula Tomas (knee) also missed the Villans’ last outing with injury.
Natalia Arroyo’s side have experienced quite the turnaround since we last faced them in March.
A 4-0 United victory at Villa Park left the Villans just one point above relegation, but they went on to win all five of their remaining league fixtures after that, to finish 2024/25 inside the top half.
This term, they have lost just one of their opening six and again proved tough to beat, despite being limited to just a sole triumph of their own, away to West Ham last month.
A strong defence has been key to their efforts – despite shipping three goals to Everton in an entertaining 3-3 draw last time out – keeping three clean sheets already this WSL term, more than their total in the whole of last season (two).
United have not lost in 10 previous WSL meetings with Aston Villa (W8 D2), keeping a clean sheet in seven of those games.
The Reds are unbeaten across our seven WSL matches this term (W5 D2) and could avoid defeat in our first eight outings of a top-flight season for just the second time, after 2020/21.
Marc Skinner's team are the leading goalscorers in the 2025/26 WSL (19) and, at 19.6 per cent, boast the best conversion rate of any side. That is the most efficient rate by a team in a single WSL campaign, narrowly ahead of the 19 per cent set by Arsenal in 2018/19.
Statistics provided by our friends at Opta.
While United and Villa go head-to-head, there’s a London derby between Arsenal and Chelsea in the WSL’s other Saturday lunchtime kick-off, before four games on Sunday.
Saturday 8 November
Arsenal v Chelsea (12:00)
UNITED v Aston Villa (12:00)
Sunday 9 November
London City v Spurs (11:55)
Liverpool v Brighton (12:00)
West Ham v Leicester (12:00)
Everton v Man City (14:30)
All kick-off times are listed in GMT.