McGowan ineligible for Birmingham return
Southampton FC Women’s Head Coach Simon Parker revealed a handful of absentees for his side's return to action against Birmingham City on Sunday 15th March.
After a month without a fixture, there has been largely positive news at Staplewood as some of Saints' longer-term injured players, Abbie Ferguson and Kiera Sena, stepped up their recoveries in training.
Emma Harries marked a recovery milestone as she completed her first running session on the grass, whilst elsewhere Tegan McGowan will be unavailable to face her parent club this weekend due to her loan agreement.
With those updates to share, Parker confirmed that this weekend's home game against Birmingham may come slightly too soon for a few of his team, providing opportunities to impress ahead of the next block of Barclays WSL2 fixtures.
"Abbie [Ferguson] is progressing, she's not going to be ready for the Birmingham game but the hope is the Durham game. We've got her back integrated into training but she's modified.
"Keira [Sena] as well is picking up fitness after coming back from her illness, again she won't be featuring this weekend but the hope is she'll be in a much better position and place for the game against Durham.
"Of course, Tegan [McGowan] is ineligible for this game, obviously being on loan from Birmingham, so we will also be without her but that gives an opportunity for somebody else to come in and show what they can do.
"There's a couple of players that we are currently assessing, so potentially might not be in the squad, but we'll know more about that very soon. It will take a whole squad effort."
