THERE will inevitably be some who feel Willie Kirk has taken a step back in becoming No 2 to Casey Stoney at Manchester United. He was, after all, head coach at Hibernian and Bristol City, but that disregards the massive potential at one of the world’s iconic clubs.
Kirk started work on Tuesday, and with Stoney still on holiday his first job was to tie up three final players to contracts, bringing the Manchester United squad up to 21. All the names will be announced at a media day this month, as will the identities of the remaining back-room staff.
“Essentially we’ve got 26 or 27 strangers coming together, and within six weeks we need to start getting results,” Kirk said.
His side will play in the newly formed 12-team FA Women’s Championship, with the first competitive fixture due on August 18 or 19 in the Continental League Cup.
United will train at Leigh Sports Village and play their games in a 12,000-seater stadium there. The following year they will be based at The Cliff, the former men’s training ground which is undergoing a
£1 million redevelopment.
Having, to much criticism, taken a long sabbatical from the women’s senior game, it now seems clear United are determined to be challenging Chelsea and Manchester City at the top of the FA Women’s Super League as soon as is possible.
Kirk says the club are not demanding promotion in the first season, but added: “The massive expectations are from myself and Casey. We think we’ll have the best squad in the Championship.
“The players won’t be getting trained every day to win the Championship – they’ll be getting trained every day to compete in WSL1 the year after.”
Kirk, who celebrated his 40th birthday recently, says he consulted fellow Scot Alan Irvine about moving from jobs where he called all the shots to United, where Stoney will be in charge.
“He’s flicked from manager to No 2 a number of times now, and says he finds it really easy to adapt,” Kirk said.
“It’s the only club I would have done it at – and part of that is because it’s a brand new project. We’re all history makers. It’s a unique opportunity to go to a club as big as this and start from scratch. That’s not going to happen anywhere else, apart from maybe Real Madrid.”
IT would be no great surprise if two players Kirk formerly worked with at Hibernian, Kirsty Smith and Lizzie Arnot, reunited with him in Manchester. Both sat on the bench against Celtic last Sunday but didn't come on despite their side being 2-1 down with just seven minutes remaining.
One can only imagine the emotions of head coach Grant Scott. He was faced with the prospect of his side's cherished title hopes taking a possible fatal hit - yet was unable to bring on either of his star players. Both had decided beforehand they were unwilling to risk injury ahead of their moves to England.
While such a situation appears on the face of it strange, it has to be factored in that both are amateur players moving to a paid environment. Further, Arnot ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament last year, an injury which scuppered a move to Manchester City.
Smith and Arnot have given great service to Hibs, and the day ended happily for all involved with the Edinburgh club when they went on to win a controversial game which finished with only eight Celtic players on the pitch.
The 4-2 scoreline made it 21 consecutive wins for Hibs over Celtic. Their last defeat was in October 2013 – when Kirk was in charge.
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