Maya Le Tissier: WSL's ever-present figure | OneFootball

Maya Le Tissier opened the scoring for Manchester United in her 100th game for the club in a 5-1 victory away to London City Lionesses on Sunday, with the captain also making those century of appearances consecutively.

Melvine Malard was bundled over early on in the game before Le Tissier kept her cool and sent the ball down the middle for her 10th goal in a United shirt – this her third from the spot.

Her performance drew praise from her manager, Marc Skinner: "She's just an ultra competitor. At half time she was going mad, even though we were 2-0 up, because our quality on the ball wasn’t good enough. It says a lot about her – she just loves playing football."

Skinner also compared Le Tissier to England legend Lucy Bronze for her constant availability (a trait she also shares with men's team captain, Bruno Fernandes).

The 23-year-old is beginning her fourth season with the club having appeared in every single game and started all but two of them – League Cup appearances in which she featured from the bench.

Those 100 consecutive appearances are for Manchester United only. Including her time with the Seagulls, Le Tissier hasn't missed a club game since May 16th 2021, when she remained on the bench for Brighton's 6-0 FA Cup win over Huddersfield Town. By our count, that's now 128 consecutive club games!

To see the last time Le Tissier missed a WSL game you'd have to go back even further, all the way back to January 2020, when the defender was an unused substitute in a 2-1 away defeat for Brighton, then managed by Hope Powell.

Indeed, no other player in the WSL has as many minutes (10,966 – or about 182 hours of playing time) since Le Tissier made her debut for Brighton at the age of just 16 in 2018. Only Katie McCabe of Arsenal has made more league appearances (128) than 'Le Tiss' (126).

It's hard to underestimate Le Tissier's importance for United since her arrival and the fact that only six players have played more games for the women's team speaks volumes. Only Hayley Ladd, Mary Earps, Katie Zelem (who was making her London City Lionesses debut on Sunday), Leah Galton, Millie Turner, and Ella Toone have played more.