Aston Villa Women defender Meaghan Sargeant to retire from football

Aston Villa Women have confirmed that Meaghan Sargeant has brought her playing career to a premature end.

The 29-year-old has been plagued by injuries in recent seasons, missing almost two whole seasons of football due to recurring injuries.

Villa announced the news that she has chosen to call time on her playing days via a club statement on Tuesday morning.

Sargeant’s decision is down to a back injury that has plagued her two-year spell with Carla Ward’s side, the same injury that stopped her from taking any part in the 2022/23 season.

She also suffered a massive ACL injury in February 2020 which kept her out for over a year, limiting her to just three appearances in the 2020/21 season.

Thankfully, she will not leave football altogether as Villa’s statement also announced that she would stay at the club in an off-field role.

A plague of injuries

Sargeant’s long-running issues with injuries are extremely saddening but are unfortunately far from unique in the women’s game.

The Women’s Super League and women’s football, in general, has been suffering from increasing amounts of long-term injuries over recent seasons.

Arsenal had four key players out with ACL injuries, the most common serious injury in the league, at the same time last season. Also, Villa were close to having only single digits of senior players available at some points due to injuries.

In the same game where Sargeant picked up her ACL injury in 2020, her Bristol City teammate Elise Hughes suffered the exact same injury.

The issue is also an international one, with superstars Alexia Putellas and Marie-Antionette Katoto as well as Villa’s Simone Magill suffering ACL injuries during last summer’s European Championships.

Sky Sports published an article in April in which doctors suggested that both menstrual cycles and unsuitable footwear could be responsible for ACL injuries, but research on the subject is scant.

Whatever the cause is, more research and increased investment in medical facilities are needed to stop cases like Sargeant’s from becoming more common.