Leicester, England, September 25th 2022: Anna Patten (15 Aston Villa) during the Barclays FA Womens Super League game between Leicester City and Aston Villa at the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England. (James Holyoak/SPP)
Aston Villa head coach Natalia Arroyo had plenty of praise for defender Anna Patten – who marks an impressive milestone of 100 appearances for the club as well as 100 WSL appearances, all at the age of 26.
Patten joined Aston Villa permanently back in 2023 following a loan spell.
And ahead of Villa’s match against Manchester United, Arroyo told SheKicks.net: “What an achievement. She’s still so young, but she has this experience with with a lot of games.
“I remember during last year that we were saying she was playing every minute for the whole year, so she’s almost always available. She leads our back line. She leads us in possession, out of possession. She has this good way of competing. She’s always quite calm on the pitch as well. You find a good balance between her energy because she’s thinking, seeing, watching, living, talking, not necessarily panicking, and she has this composure with the ball. She makes us really, really strong.”
“Anna Patten is setting the tone”
And she gave a little more detail about what Patten adds from a tactical perspective.
“We use a lot of these skills that she has to play through to carry the ball to help us progress. So in our in-possession style, she’s one of the most important players from this back line as we are using goalkeepers, centre-backs – she’s one of the ones that is brave to play this style. She’s been brave this season as well to hold this high-pressing style and dealing with difficult strikers, accepting duels sometimes. We are isolating in a way where sometimes she needs to deal with a lot of spaces, but a big, big duel.
“So far, she’s one of the reasons why we are getting this clean sheet. So I’m really happy to have her in the team. She’s one of our captains and she’s setting a good tone for what we want to be as a club.”
