{"id":726250,"date":"2026-08-03T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726250\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:00:12","slug":"womens-super-league-have-man-utd-lost-faith-in-womens-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/726250\/","title":{"rendered":"Women&#8217;s Super League: Have Man Utd lost faith in women&#8217;s team?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In April, Skinner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cze2gw42ll8o\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced questions about his future<\/a>, insisting he had &#8220;no doubts&#8221; that he remained the best person for the job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There had been no internal discussions about his position going into the World Sevens tournament in May &#8211; and the club were satisfied with results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The expectation was to challenge for silverware and try to qualify for Europe again. United <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/live\/cx24ml4d1l2t#:~:text=Chelsea%20defended%20the%20first%20of,in%20the%20FA%20Cup%20showpiece.\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lost the League Cup final<\/a> to Chelsea, missed out on a top-three finish by nine points but had reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All in all, given their budget was considerably lower than their top-three rivals (their wage bill was \u00a35.9m in 2024-25, while Chelsea&#8217;s was \u00a314.5m), Skinner had done a good job in the face of widespread scrutiny from fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But United sources say as the new season approached, discussions took place and it was clear Skinner and the club were not aligned on the direction they were going.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As United moved towards a sustainable model, focused on youth development, Skinner had become increasingly frustrated at a lack of squad investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Following their 3-0 defeat by rivals Manchester City in March, Skinner said: &#8220;The team are giving absolutely everything they can. It&#8217;s clear to me that if we get the right investment in the right areas, then we can meet those expectations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He echoed the sentiment following their cup final defeat by Chelsea and again on the final day of the season as they looked ahead to the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yet despite a quiet January window, United have not acted with pace this summer, instead signing 22-year-old defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/cdr42473p4jo\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andrea Medina<\/a> and goalkeeper <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/czjle91ry39o#:~:text=Manchester%20United%20have%20signed%20goalkeeper,arrival%20of%20defender%20Andrea%20Medina.\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Janina Leitzig<\/a>, who is presumably back-up to the established Phallon Tullis-Joyce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While United remain cagey in the market, their rivals are spending big with Arsenal bringing in the likes of England international Georgia Stanway and Spain full-back Ona Batlle, while Chelsea paid \u00a3850,000 for one of United&#8217;s key players, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/c62120n7y8jo\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melvine Malard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Skinner had struggled to win over supporters, so faced with intense external scrutiny, limited squad depth and clear disagreements over the club&#8217;s lack of spending, his position became untenable for both parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In April, Skinner faced questions about his future, insisting he had &#8220;no doubts&#8221; that he remained the best&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-726250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}