Miri Taylor has had a big week.
First she scored the winner for Aston Villa against Manchester United, and now she has received her first senior call-up for Scotland.
It is her first international recognition since switching her allegiance from England, the country she represented at under-17 level.
And her Villa manager Natalia Arroyo couldn’t be more pleased.
“She’s a hard worker,” the boss told SheKicks.net in a press conference on Thursday. “She’s always a team player, but she was sometimes impatient, because she wanted to shine, so that she could have more chances in the senior level with the national team and also be part of this [Villa team] – ‘I want to start.’
“So she was patient, she was working hard, she was in the shadows, she was accepting the role and she is open to learn. We were working on different things to give her more chances to be closer to the starting 11 and now she’s making it and she’s trying to keep it.”
“We are happy to have Miri Taylor around”
And Arroyo says Taylor has plenty of attributes to offer any team.
“We know she’s physically a strong player. We were working on picking the right duels so that she’s not everywhere running and then not being able to win the duels. I think we are working on a little bit more of being smarter in her energy, actions in the middle.
“I think out of position [she] is an important player in our structure, and in position, she’s growing.
“We are working on that so that she can understand where we need to have the centre midfield to feed everything and to and to distribute better.
“She’s growing and she trains really, really well, so we are happy to have her around.
“And now she’s enjoying the moment of being a little more [of a] protagonist. That’s something that the players want – and I’m especially happy that she has the opportunity to bring this level to the international level. We were celebrating the call-up today!”
Taylor spent time on loan at Villa before signing permanently last summer from Liverpool. She has also played for Angel City in the NWSL and for Chelsea before she headed to the USA for her college education.
