The FA WSL transfer window is in the middle of the first of three months and with the pre-season starting now, it seems like there is still some business to be done.
So far, Arsenal have signed a defensive midfielder in Fara Williams as well as attacking midfielder Danielle Van de Donk and a left footed forward Katie McCabe. The following players have left in the meantime – Siobhan Chamberlain to Liverpool, Jade Bailey to Chelsea and Chioma Ubogagu to the Houston Dash.
Chatter from the USA, and confirmed by an FA WSL coach at the NSCAA convention in Baltimore last week, suggests Jodie Taylor might sign up for the Gunners. Although the rumour has been doing the rounds for a few months now, recent events tend to suggest that it might happen soon.
Portland Thorns, her current club, has just added two quality forwards in Lindsey Horan from PSG and Nadia Nadim from Sky Blues FC. If you add into the equation that a high-school, extremely talented, forward Mallory Pugh is strongly linked to the Thorns, it would make sense for Jodie Taylor to move to England.
In addition to this, we also heard chatter that Arsenal Ladies is ready to carry on their policy of letting their homegrown youngsters go. It was disappointing to see Jade Bailey leave for Chelsea Ladies and we might see another young player that came through the ranks go, albeit on a possible season long loan.
There is no doubt that the FA WSL is an extremely competitive league with Manchester City and Chelsea leading the race and pushing all the clubs to compete with them. If Pedro Losa thinks that some of the youngsters that came through the ranks are not good enough to help the club compete for the title or the Champions League places, then fair enough.
At the end of the day, the manager is under pressure to produce results and maybe he has big hopes for the next generation of girls born in 97-98-99, if the 95-96 generation is not strong enough for him.
We will see in the forthcoming weeks if any of the moves materialise but the the transfer window business is far from being done.