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Hayley Ladd, the Wales defensive midfielder, is the lynchpin holding the Manchester United team together.
The Welsh experienced international has a fair bit of experience under her belt playing in England for Arsenal, Coventry City, Bristol Academy/City, and Birmingham City. She also had a short spell in Finland with Kokkola F10.
She joined Manchester United women in 2019 during the inauguration of the first season in FA WSL.
The 28-year-old plays as a defensive midfielder but does not have any problem slotting into the center-back position. This season Aoife Mannion, Millie Turner, and Diane Caldwell took a knock and were out with injuries. Only Maria Thorrisdottir was available and Ladd was slotted into the center-back role and she has performed beyond expectations.
Full-backs Ona Battle and Hannah Blundell usually like to play higher up the pitch because they have that panache for attacking. They know whether to cross or play one-two or overlap and underlap with the wingers. Whenever the fullbacks decide to bombard and go high up the pitch it leaves two defenders. What Hayley Ladd does is she forms a defensive trio at the back alongside the two center-backs. If by any chance the forwards lose the possession the three defenders will make sure to cancel out any opposition transition attacks. Ladd is the most versatile player on the team.
If Mannion, who is a good distributor of the ball, pushes forward, Hayley Ladd will automatically slot back into the center-back role.
Let’s dive into her analysis side of it to see what makes Hayley Ladd an important part of the team.
The Welsh international has an excellent range of passing. She usually drives from the deep and opens up space for her teammates. She has made a total of 976 passes out of which 449 passes were successful. Though she has an array of passes in her belt, she excels in spraying medium passes. She has made a total of 525 medium passes out of which she has 253 successful passes taking her tally to 99 percentile or 93% per 90.