Mel Reay reveals a major Sunderland injury boost ahead of Championship return at Bristol City

Ramshaw and Herron have both recovered from injuries picked up in pre-season to hand a major boost to Mel Reay as the Women’s Championship returns following a three-week absence.

Sunderland have had some COVID cases during that time but Reay is hopeful it will not impact her selection at the weekend.

"Keira Ramshaw and Neve Herron will go back into the squad, which is a big positive for us,” Reay told The Echo.

“We have had a bit of COVID in the camp over the break but we expect everyone to be available.

“Neve was a strong player for us last year, you have to got to be careful with a broken foot not to bring someone back too early but she's hit all her milestones, the doctor is happy and she's trained really well all week, so she's really eager to get out on the pitch on Sunday.”

Sunderland’s break from competitive action has posed a challenge to Reay in keeping her side fresh and ready, but it’s one that they have become used to in what is their second season at Championship level.

"It's always hard, you want momentum and especially the way we felt after the Birmingham game, we wanted to get back out there quickly,” Reay said.

“But it has given us time to reflect, and we're eager to get back out there on Sunday.

“We've learned quite a bit off last season in terms of having these gaps in the calendar, we tried different ways to keep them ticking over and to be honest, I don't think we got it quite right. So we haven't had much time off, they've been training hard, we've been playing 11-v-11 on a Sunday to try and keep that routine going.”

It has been a challenging start to the campaign for Sunderland, with an excellent 1-1 draw away at Durham followed by the disappointment of the 4-0 defeat to former WSL side Birmingham City at the Stadium of Light last time out.

Bristol City, who have won their first two games and kept two clean sheets in the process, will pose another stern test but Reay knows her side can compete with anyone at their best.

“We've just got to stay focused on what we want to try and do,” Reay said.

“When you look at it we've had two tough games and that becomes three on Sunday. We did really well against Durham and then dipped against Birmingham, so we want to try and get some consistency going in this block of games.

“There's always going to be ups and downs but we know what we're capable of when we turn up all over the pitch. When we're switched on in and out of possession, we normally get points. We need to make sure we're at it on Sunday because we know it's going to be a tough game.

“They were up there last season, they beat us in the away game but we took points off them at Hetton. They've started well, but we'll go with a plan to try and take some points off them.”