The Reds’ Barclays Women’s Super League season resumes at Brisbane Road on Sunday (12pm GMT kick-off) and head coach Gareth Taylor provided a squad fitness update during his pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon.
Taylor said: “We don’t get a lot of time, I think most coaches will tell you that, when you come back after the international break. You effectively have one or two days to prepare so it’s been a tight turnaround, but I think the girls have come back looking good today.
“We’re still waiting on Leanne, she’s had an issue with her foot, bruising, and hopefully we can get her available tomorrow for training and then obviously travel with the squad because we’re a little bit light on numbers.
“Gemma Bonner will probably just come up a little bit short of the game and of course to go alongside the additional ones that you’re already aware of: Zara Shaw, Alejandra [Bernabe].
“Lucy Parry is getting a little bit closer and will possibly be back in training next week, which will help as well. So, outside of that, everyone from international duty has pretty much come back in good shape.”
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Marie Höbinger and Sophie Roman Haug are long-term absentees after suffering ACL injuries before the international break.
Taylor added: “It does obviously limit us a little bit. Of course we can’t do anything until the transfer window opens again in January, but I think particularly the positions of those players – Sophie being a striker and Marie being an attacking midfielder – it’s not really an area of the pitch where we are stacked with players. So that’s really unfortunate.
“The good news is we’ve got the plans together for them in terms of when the surgery will be, which is going to be soon, and hopefully get them on the road to recovery.
“But yeah, really tough – I think having that type of injury happen at any time of the season is not great, but where it sits, obviously it happened in back-to-back games, has been tough to take as well.”