{"id":452329,"date":"2026-02-01T21:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/452329\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T21:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:14:09","slug":"mary-fowler-back-from-acl-injury-on-manchester-citys-landmark-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/452329\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Fowler back from ACL injury on Manchester City’s landmark day"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a beaming smile, warm hugs and to the cheers of her army of fans, Mary Fowler<\/a> has returned to action in the Women’s Super League<\/a> on a day of huge celebration for Manchester City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After nine-and-a-half months on the sidelines with an anterior cruciate ligament injury she suffered in last season’s Women’s FA Cup<\/a> semifinal, Fowler came on as a substitute in the 75th minute of City’s fabulous 5-1 victory over champions Chelsea<\/a> at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\n

She was left beaming as she made her return with her side coasting at 5-1. City’s two superstars Vivianne Miedema<\/a> and Khadija Shaw<\/a>, who’d both scored earlier in the game, both embraced with the 22-year-old on the touchline as they were replaced in the 76th minute.<\/p>\n

Mary Fowler came on for Manchester City in the 75th minute.\u00a0Naomi Baker – WSL\/WSL Football via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The home crowd also rose as one to celebrate on what proved a landmark day, with City handing the ailing champions one of their worst ever WSL defeats. It felt like a changing-of-the-guard moment, with Chelsea now looking sure to be dethroned after six successive titles.<\/p>\n

Fowler, inevitably, had to shake off some rustiness during her cameo but slotted in to her centre forward role comfortably enough as City eased to a win that puts them 11 points clear of neighbours Manchester United<\/a> and 12 clear of Chelsea.<\/p>\n

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The visitors brought Fowler’s Matildas captain Sam Kerr<\/a> on early in the second half but she proved largely ineffective with Chelsea already 3-0 down and being outclassed.<\/p>\n

Their only consolation came from an Alyssa Thompson<\/a> strike when they were 4-0 down.<\/p>\n

The great news for Australia<\/a>‘s Women’s Asian Cup hopes is that both their key attacking threats should now be back in harness for the home tournament that begins on March 1 with a fixture against Philippines<\/a> in Perth.<\/p>\n

Star of the day proved to be City’s Brazilian international Kerolin<\/a>, who’d netted a superb hat-trick by the 54th minute.<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with all the latest Matildas and football news ahead of the Asian Cup by subscribing to our football newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her second goal was the pick of the three as she ran nearly the length of the pitch, bursting away from midfielder Keira Walsh<\/a> and chipping England<\/a> goalkeeper Hannah Hampton<\/a> expertly as she homed in on goal.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the WSL, Lisa Naalsund<\/a> scored a second-half double as Manchester United beat Liverpool<\/a> 3-1, while Clare Hunt<\/a>‘s Tottenham moved one point off the top three after coming from behind to beat Katrina Gorry<\/a>‘s struggling West Ham 2-1.<\/p>\n

Brighton lost 2-1 at home to London City Lionesses<\/a> on an emotional day at the club. They were overseen again by assistant manager Chris Roberts in the absence of their Australian boss Dario Vidosic, whose dad Rado, a coach with the Seagulls, had died earlier in the week, aged 64.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a beaming smile, warm hugs and to the cheers of her army of fans, Mary Fowler has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-452329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}