THE squad for Scotland's most important games since the Euros will be announced on Wednesday, and the good news is that Kim Little will return for the World Cup qualifiers against Switzerland and Poland.
That had always been the intention, but the attacking midfielder's display in Arsenal's FA WSL Continental Cup win over Manchester City on Wednesday night confirmed she is ready for the challenges ahead. Despite being deployed out of position on the left, Arsenal's captain did enough in her 89 minutes to win the player-of-the-match award.
No matter who you are, an anterior cruciate ligament injury always poses big questions about a player's ability to return to previous standards, and in Little's case these couldn't be much higher. So while Shelley Kerr always had her pencilled in for the qualifiers, watching her perform as she did against Man City was an obvious relief.
“She'd only had 60 minutes [on the pitch] up until the final, so to come in and get player-of-the-match is great for the national team,” Kerr confirmed. “Kim has been out for a long time, but she still controlled certain segments of the game and probably not from her preferred position.
“It's still going to take a bit of time for her to get back to where she was before the injury, but, having spoken to Kim, I was convinced before we'd even gone to Pinatar for the New Zealand friendlies that she would return for the next squad.
“I've certainly seen enough evidence now that she's more than ready to be up for selection in the Switzerland and Poland games.”
The Continental Cup final, between two of England's top three clubs, was no classic and Manchester City's response was less than might have been expected after Vivianne Miedema scored the only goal of the game for Arsenal in 33 minutes.
Lisa Evans, again in the unfamiliar position of right-back, Emma Mitchell and Little all won winners' medals, with all three playing full roles in the game until the captain was replaced by Katie McCabe a minute from time. Jen Beattie was the only one of the three Scots to start for the losing side, with Jane Ross coming on at the start of the second half and Claire Emslie just after the hour.
The positive was that all six were on the pitch for most of the final 30 minutes - although as Kerr pointed out it would have been even better had they all started. “But it's great you have a cup final in a league that's thriving financially, as well as being competitive, and we've got six of our players involved,” she said.
“There are players coming back to fitness, and there have been players introduced into the squad who've done well. It's going to be a tough one,” she said.
There was further positive news for Kerr on Friday when Rachel Corsie, who is without a club since being released by Seattle Reign, played 72 minutes for NWSL side Utah Royals in a pre-season friendly.
The central defender has been training with the Salt Lake City franchise and while no signing has yet been announced, Corsie's prolonged appearance so close to the start of the season suggests it must be likely.
A further indication is that the head coach of Utah Royals, who have replaced Kansas City in the top American league, is Laura Harvey. The Englishwoman had the same role at Seattle when Corsie signed for them in 2015.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here