Following the signing of Kim Little, the official FA WSL squad is up to 39 players with a maximum of 40 accepted and rumour has it the club has asked for an extension to 43, but in reality the squad needs trimming.

Here is the full squad including the development team as they are included in the FA WSL players squad cap rule:

Squad Cap rules from the FA WSL 2016 regulations:

  • Each Club is entitled to register:
    • a maximum of 40 players (including players on long term loan) each playing season; and
    • an additional 2 players each playing season on short term loan (the “Squad Cap”).
  • The Squad Cap includes player registrations for the competition and player registrations for the FA WSL Development League team.

The following is what I would do in term of first team squad.

The Development team squad in itself is very thin actually and would need more players right now, but with 39 players already signed, only one extra youngster could be added to the squad.

I would trim the first team squad to two players per position plus Kelly Smith as a 23rd player if she wants to carry on for another year. So I would sign four players: a goalkeeper, a defensive midfielder, Kim Little and a right winger. And I would let go of nine players, either on loan for the youngsters or release/sell the other ones.

Byrne, Williams, Yankey, Taylor could go while Sampson, Devlin, Oshoala, Kelly and Humphrey could go on loan, or permanently if they would like to leave.

That would leave the squad at 23 players with:

  • GK: Van Veenendaal, X
  • RB: Scott, Patten
  • LB: Mitchell, Hinds
  • CB: Stoney, Henning, Rose, Wubben-Moy
  • DM: Janssen, X
  • RW: Corredera, X
  • LW: McCabe, Van De Donk
  • CM: Nobbs, Williamson
  • AM: Little, Losada, Smith
  • FW: Carter, Sanchon

Half of that squad can play, in two, three four or five positions, so there would be no need for a bigger squad unless a huge raft of injuries start to pile in.

The big question: where can we find a talented goalie, defensive midfielder and right-winger that would like to come into the rotation?

With the spring series acting as a warm-up for the 2017/18 season, we should see some movements during the winter and summer transfer windows.