‘You can’t have any regrets’ – Manchester United boss Skinner discusses Thomas decision | OneFootball

Manchester United head coach Marc Skinner insists that there are no regrets about letting forward Martha Thomas leave the club at the end of last season.

Thomas has been in phenomenal goalscoring form for new club Tottenham Hotspur this season. She has netted six goals in just eight Barclays Women’s Super League outings for The Lilywhites.

Manchester United travel to Spurs this weekend and when speaking in the pre-match press conference, head coach Skinner said that he doesn’t regret letting Thomas move on in the summer.

“You can’t have any regrets,” Skinner said. “I don’t think Martha will and we definitely won’t.

“I’m really pleased that she’s doing well. When she left, we had a conversation about the context of where we are as a team and where she was as an inidividual. There’s no way that we could’ve kept Martha playing in the same role as she was for another year, it wouldn’t have helped her and it wouldn’t have been fair.

“I hope she doesn’t do it against us but I hope she continues to do it in the league. There are no hard feelings between us and I’ve been really impressed with her, especially her goals against Villa.

“We had players like Alessia [Russo] who were consistent, so it was difficult for us but you change the context, you change the player and sometimes, opportunities are less at some clubs and more at others. It was the right decision for Manchester United and the right decision for Martha and I wish her the best of luck.”

Spurs lost 7-0 in their last match against Manchester City. Having reviewed the North Londoners’ performance in that match, Skinner does not believe that it reflects Spurs’ true qualities and he expects much more from them this weekend.

He said “I watched the Manchester City game back and they were clinical but it was never a 7-0 game. It would’ve been a lot closer with a bit better individual defending at times.

“I thought that Tottenham’s attacking play was really bright and you could see what they’re trying to do. I feel that they will look to do the same [against us], mark that defeat as experience and take the positives from it in terms of their attacking play.

“When I look at how we need to defend against them, there are things that we will need to do really well to make sure that they don’t get chances. Beth [England] has a chance of being back as well and we all know how good she is. We’ve also spoken about Martha [Thomas] and Grace [Clinton] being excellent for them.

“They have the defensive qualities but didn’t show them in the Manchester City game. It’ll be a tough game and we will have to be at our very best. We’ve got to be ready to beat a very good team that are going to create chances.”

Manchester United’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Tottenham Hotspur kicks-off at 6.45pm on Sunday evening.