Manchester United Women defender Hannah Blundell is set to play for our Under-21s this (Wednesday) afternoon, in what will be her first match since giving birth to her baby daughter.
Head coach Marc Skinner confirmed the news during his pre-match press conference earlier this morning, as he previewed United's UEFA Women's Champions League qualifying tie away to Brann on Thursday.
Featuring in a young Reds side that will take on Leicester City at Carrington in the PGA U21 Women's League North will be a milestone step in Blundell's journey back to first-team action, after giving birth in March before returning to training earlier this summer.
Hannah hasn't played since the final day of the 2023/24 season and her team-mates are due to attend her comeback outing at our training ground, before departing for the team flight to Norway.
Below you can see Marc's full answer on the defender, along with more key quotes from his media briefing, including the latest team news, what he expects from Brann and the impact of playing continental football.
GEORGE AND ROLFO SHOULD BE AVAILABLE ON SUNDAY
“Probably not [for Brann], they are training, they will probably be involved at the weekend [against London City Lionesses]. They won’t make the trip, just because they’ve got a few bits that they need to do. Both were training yesterday with the team, so, all in all, [it's] looking really good. We just have to be careful with these games coming thick and fast, so both should be available at the weekend.”
BLUNDELL RETURN
“Some good news, she’s playing with the Under-21s today. Tom [her partner] and baby Romi will be here to watch. It’s at Carrington so she’ll be playing, I think, up to 60 minutes today. We leave here at 2:20pm and we’re all going to watch the first half, so we’ve managed to move the game early enough so we can go and watch. So I think she’ll have a lot of supporters on the side, welcoming her back. It will be a fantastic moment and then, after that, we can get a better idea of where she’s at. She’s been in training and it will be really good to get her back.”
UPDATES ON WILLIAMS, AWUJO AND GALTON
“Rach, we’re planning on maybe a week, a week-and-a-half, hopefully she’ll be back towards the end of next week. Simi is around three weeks away, also Leah was training yesterday, doing individual sessions. I’m hoping, within the next three weeks, we’ll have everyone back and everyone ready to play.”
WE WANT TO MAKE BRANN DEFEND
“It’s hard because when you watch most of their games, because they’re such a dominant team in Norway, they tend to have a lot of the ball. So, you don’t really see them defend that much. We know about Signe Gaupset in midfield but their frontline can be really aggressive, and they play a good style of football. So, this will be a difficult tie. We’ve watched all their games, the two recent qualification games as well. We know the team that we’re playing against, we’ve got to be professional, we’ve got to give high energy. I think there’s something like 14,000 tickets sold, so it’s going to be a raucous atmosphere, but I think the Hammarby game probably prepared us for that. Expect similar quality, can score goals, can defend because they keep clean sheets as well, but I want to see if we can be the team that makes them defend a little bit more.”
TERLAND FACING FORMER CLUB
“The way our team supply with Elisabeth and how hard she works, she’ll be a threat to anyone. It’s a nice story she’s going back and of course Lisa [Naalsund] is as well, but she’s ultra professional. She’ll have all of those feelings, but she’ll subdue them to make sure we try and win the game. She’ll look forward to trying to score over there and pay respect to the country where she started.”
“It’s something we’ve needed. We’ve got a great, energetic, young, growing group and I think, in this window, we needed to add that experience. It’s given us the opportunity to make better decisions in intense moments. That’s really the key to experience. It’s knowing that you trust yourselves when the nerves kick in. For us, it’s vital if we’re going to go into these two games and then hopefully qualify for the Champions League proper. If we do, then we’ll need that vital experience.”
WHAT EUROPEAN MATCHES TEACH YOU
“It teaches you about recovery. From my perspective as a coach, it teaches me how to maximise or minimise time. You’re not gifted a lot of it going through these two games. We trained yesterday after the game on Sunday, we train today, we fly today, we play tomorrow, we fly back straight after the game and then we’re off on Friday, so we have one training then going into London City. So, it’s about what is your messaging, what are your key priorities? You have to find the right solutions for the problems you’re going to face. We have to make sure, as players and staff, we get the right answers going into the games.”