Marc Skinner gives Ona Batlle concussion update & reveals when Alessia Russo will return | OneFootball

Manchester United striker Alessia Russo could be back in action at the end of the month after missing the club’s 4-0 WSL over Brighton through injury.

Although able to resume some training during the week, Russo was not ready to return to action on Sunday, having also recently missed England games against the United States and Czech Republic.

United still had enough to comfortably see off the Seagulls to make this their best ever start to a WSL season by winning all their opening three games for the first time in the top flight.

But fans will still be keen to see Russo return, with Marc Skinner now confirming that the 23-year-old should be fit enough to play again in two or three weeks.

“Maybe end of October, maybe two or three weeks,” Skinner said.

“She was running again on the [training] pitch the other day, doing lots of individual stuff. We’ll expose her to a week’s training before she goes into team stuff. From what we understand, it’s progressing nicely and she is moving well on the field.”

That will mean Russo misses at least United’s away trip to Leicester next weekend and the midweek Conti Cup game against Durham that quickly follows it. But she has the potential to be involved for the game at Everton on 30 October. Failing that, United then face WSL champions Chelsea on 6 November, the first big test for Skinner’s side against one of last season’s top three.

An otherwise good day for United was slightly tarnished in stoppage time when Ona Batlle was withdrawn because of a suspected concussion. Skinner had already used all five permitted substitutions, but Maria Thorisdottir went on as a concussion replacement.

“We’re assessing Ona,” Skinner explained. “She was showing some signs of [a potential concussion] so we needed to be safe. I think she’s fine, but we needed to make sure we followed the protocol and that was the reason we made that [substitution].”

The United boss also made the decision to withdraw left-back Hannah Blundell at half-time after picking up a ‘problem’ in the first 45 minutes.