Casey Stoney outlines vision for Manchester United women’s team
Manchester United women’s team kick off their season against Liverpool this weekend. Adam Bate caught up with head coach Casey Stoney to discuss her coaching journey, the club’s plans for the future, the scale of the job and tapping into those United traditions.
For the newly-appointed manager of the relaunched Manchester United Women team, the city of Liverpool had been the place she called home until recently. But Casey Stoney realised pretty quickly this needed to change. „I’m moving,“ Stoney tells Sky Sports. „Going home at night in a Manchester United kit does not go down that well in Liverpool.“
There have been several moments that have hammered home the scale of the organisation of which Stoney is now a figurehead. Social media is largely avoided – „I let my family feed back to me the positives“ – but there was no dodging the creative day that marked the team’s launch. „It was the amount of people working on it. The military precision. Wow.“
It has taken too long for United to enter the fray since disbanding their previous women’s team in 2005, but now they are doing it they intend to do it properly. The journey will begin in the second tier – the Women’s Super League must wait. But while Stoney has had to build a squad from scratch in short time, there will still be expectations. This is United.
„My job was to go and get 21 players and my staff in place, which in four weeks was quite a big job,“ she explains. „Fortunately, I have good relationships within the game and the club has been brilliant. They have been very keen to make sure I have felt no pressure. They want to build slowly. They want to get it right. They don’t make quick, wrong decisions.
„So it’s very much, we crawl, we walk, we jog and then we run. We build that way. If you look at the average age of our squad it is 21. We have gone young for a reason because it is a project that we are doing over five, six or seven years. It is not one year. So there is no pressure there from above to win promotion in the first year.
„Obviously, my own expectations are a bit different. I’m quite driven and I would not have taken the job if I did not want expectations and pressure. I like pressure. I am the sort of person who, if my back is up against the wall, I am more successful when I am doing that. I took the job because I wanted to put myself in a situation like that.“
It is tempting to fall into the trap of believing Stoney is an inexperienced appointment in managerial terms. After all, she was making her 130th appearance for England as recently as October. But there has been much more to Stoney’s coaching journey than the brief stint she spent as assistant to Phil Neville with the national team. It began as a teenager.
„I took my level two coaching badge when I was 17,“ she says. „I was always coaching as well as playing. So there was never any doubt that I was going to coach. I feel like I am where I am because of what I have done before. I did my badges. It’s the choices you make. There’s no luck element to it. If you work hard then you put yourself in the best position.“
Some of it has been hard. Stoney describes her time as caretaker manager of Chelsea back in 2009 as the toughest she has experienced. „I was still young at 27 and I was preparing for a European Championship myself,“ she adds. „I was player-manager with no staff and no coaches. The structure of the club wasn’t great and we had no money.
„I was training in the morning so that I could potentially not need to train with the team later on so that we could focus instead on what they needed to work on. I was having to think of sessions that I could coach as well as be in. But if you are doing a crossing session for your back four and you’re in it, it’s quite hard to coach it. So it was really tough.
„I learnt a lot about how you can plan and how you can structure sessions for the needs of individuals. I also learnt a lot about my players and I learnt a lot about myself. I think the players respected me because I didn’t get paid to do it, it was something I wanted to do.“
Almost a decade on, it helps to explain while Stoney not only feels prepared for the challenge ahead but invigorated by the support that is now in place. She speaks enthusiastically about the talents of the performance coach, the goalkeeper coach and the physiotherapist, and will be aided by the „fantastic“ Willie Kirk as her new assistant.
Soccer Accumulator Bonus
Our fantastic Euro Soccer accumulator offer gives you the chance to earn a bonus of up to 100% on accumulators on the top domestic leagues in Europe along with the group and knockout stages of the Champions League.
This offer applies to returns on pre-match accumulators of 3 or more selections on Full Time Result or Result/Both Teams To Score markets for the English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera Liga, German Bundesliga 1 or UEFA Champions League.
The maximum bonus that you can receive is €100,000 or currency equivalent. The bonus will not apply where a stake has been fully Cashed Out. Where a stake has been partially Cashed Out, the bonus will be calculated based .on the remaining active stake. If a qualifying bet is edited .using our Edit Bet feature. The bonus will be calculated based on the new stake. Where a bet has been edited to include or amend a selection for an event that is In-Play, the bonus will no longer apply. Double Chance bets or combination bets with bonuses. Such as Lucky 15’s or Lucky .31’s do not apply for this offer.
If your bet is successful, we will add the following bonuses to your returns:
Bet Type Bonus
14-folds and upwards 100% bonus
Terms and Conditions
Applies to straight pre-match accumulator bets on the Full Time Result or Result/Both Teams To Score markets for UEFA Champions League, English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera Liga, German Bundesliga .1 or Australian A-League matches. Maximum bonus €100,000 or currency equivalent. Soccer Accumulator Bonus does not apply to Double Chance bets or combination. bets with bonuses such as Lucky 15’s, Lucky 31’s etc.
If any selections are postponed/void then the bonus will still apply, but the percentage bonus added will reflect the actual number of winning selections. For example, an 8-fold accumulator with 7. winners and 1 postponed match will receive a 30% .bonus to returns.
The bonus part of your returns will be added to your account within 24 hours of your final selection having played.
This bonus will not apply where a stake has been fully Cashed Out. Where a stake has been partially Cashed Out, the bonus will be calculated based on the remaining active stake.
If a qualifying bet is edited using our Edit Bet feature, the bonus will be calculated based on the new stake. Where a bet has been edited to include or amend a selection for an event that is In-Play, the bonus will no longer apply.
Where any term of the offer or promotion is breached or there is any evidence of a series of bets placed by a customer or group of customers, which due to a deposit bonus, enhanced payments, free bets, risk free bets or any other promotional offer results in guaranteed customer profits irrespective of the outcome, whether individually or as part of a group, bet365 reserves the right to reclaim the bonus element of such offers and in their absolute discretion either settle bets at the correct odds, void the free and risk free. bets or void any bet funded by the deposit bonus.
In addition bet365 .reserve the right to levy an administration charge on the customer up to the value of the deposit bonus, free bet, risk free bet or additional payment to cover administrative costs. We further reserve the right to ask any customer to provide sufficient documentation for us to be satisfied in our absolute discretion as to the customer’s identity prior to us crediting any bonus, free bet, risk free bet or offer to their account.
All bet365 offers are intended for recreational players and bet365 may in its sole discretion limit the eligibility of customers to participate in all or part of any promotion.
bet365 reserves the right to amend, cancel, reclaim or refuse any promotion at its own discretion.
