Arsenal have confirmed that Beth Mead ruptured her ACL in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.
Mead landed awkwardly during stoppage time and walked off in tears. With the World Cup in eight months time the injury puts her participation in serious doubt.
A statement from Arsenal read, ‘We can confirm that Beth Mead suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in our match against Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on Saturday.
‘Unfortunately, this means that Beth is set for an extended period on the sidelines. She will see a surgeon in the coming days, after which further details on timescales will be established.
‘Everyone at the club will now be supporting Beth and working hard to get her back on the pitch as soon as possible.’
Arsenal were interested in bringing another forward into the squad in January in any case and this injury will redouble those efforts. The club has the option to recall Brazilian winger Gio Queiroz from her loan spell at Everton in January if they want to.
Female athletes are around six times more likely to rupture their ACLs compared to male athletes due to a variety of factors, including the wider hips and different gait compared to male athletes.
It’s a particular blow for Mead who won the Golden Boot and player of the tournament awards as she helped England to win the Euros in the summer. She also finished second in the Ballon D’Or voting.
Best of luck for a speedy recovery, Beth.
I wish her a full and speedy recovery.
Devastating, she is such a top player.
Shit. Injury gods really not smiling on the ladies this year. Maybe an outcome of playing too many minutes in recent times
It never does which is why to be competitive as a team we need more high quality cover. Meado has been overplayed, she does get the s**t kicked out of her every game, she has had a few personal issues of late none of which may directly have led to the ACL giving up on her but it was only a matter of time before something took her out of the equation for a prolonged period. It simply feels unjust that she was in the form of her career up until that match and do players ever fully regain their… Read more »
It may have been an awkward fall that was the final straw but she has been regularly targeted and has received insufficient protection from referees.
You can do your ACL without anyone near you, 100% rested and fit. I did mine first game of pre-season after a week of training. Hope she’s back stronger.
70% of ACL injuries are non contact (and hers looked like it was as well)so I really doubt a referee could have stopped it but I get that we have to be mad at someone but I think we just don’t know enough about ACL injuries in the women’s game and how to prevent them.
Non contact?!!
Are you having a grin? She was shoved!!
🙄
Football is a contact sport and she was being shielded from the ball It would be really harsh to penalise all those type of actions in a game because most of the time they are non issues. But once again I understand the need to feel mad at someone bu I just don’t think its the refs in this instance because ACL injurie are just an area of uncertainty so attempting to prevent them with harsher refereeing wont stop them happening.
It wasn’t an awkward fall, she was shoved.
But you’re right, she doesn’t get sufficient protection from the refs and neither does Saka and the idiots that have downvoted this need to give their heads a wobble.
That’s bad. Speedy recovery
Time to stop the Viv at no 10 experiment which is not working and put her back up front, maybe a front 3 of Caitlin, Viv and Stina?
Tough, must hard coming off the back of a great year for club and country and a World Cup coming up. Wishing her a speedy recovery
There was an article on the BBC about football boots being made for men effecting the number of injuries for women. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63636201
Might this have something to do with that?
On this occasion I think it’s unlikely, at the elite clubs, boots have been made for women for some time now.
Yes – boots etc less an issue at elite level, but still a problem for everyone else. Incidentally, the paper that the BBC story was citing appears to be available free now (it was initially behind a paywall). Interesting to see Leah Williamson named as a co-author – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12283-022-00384-3
Mortified to hear this. Hope her recovery is quick and she comes back stronger than ever
You wonder if she’s been carrying an injury for a few games and that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’s not been herself for a few games. Let’s hope that she makes a full and thorough recovery.
If she had been rested I would have been one of the fans annoyed by it. Time for self reflection as well.
Get well soon Beth
First and foremost, I wish Beth a speedy recovery. I see that her injury resulted from a blatant shove from a cheating opponent, who was making absolutely no effort to play the ball. The point that I’m making is that until we start to get the same level of protection from the so-called officials, Arsenal players – both men and women – will continue to be placed under unnecessary risk to injuries such as the one that Beth has sustained. Seems to me that if your shirt has a cannon, then you’re fair game to be kicked up in the… Read more »
Here’s wishing you a speedy recovery, Beth.😍🙏🏾
Even last season I remember saying to my neighbour at Meadow Park “There’s a new WSL rule: fouls against Beth Mead don’t count”.
There’s an old football rule period – fouls against Arsenal don’t count.
Dam, dam, dam…