Ipswich Town Women’s manager Joe Sheehan admits the injury skipper Maria Boswell suffered during the 1-0 away defeat to Hashtag United this afternoon doesn’t look great.
Just before the hour mark, the 22-year-old appeared to catch her studs on what was a poor surface at Canvey Island’s Steve’s Taxis Stadium and went down in clear pain.
After treatment on the pitch, Boswell was stretchered off with concerns that she may have sustained an ACL tear, the same injury suffered by teammate Charlotte Fleming when the teams met in the FA Cup in November.
"It doesn’t look great,” Sheehan told TownTV. "Those that were here will have heard her scream and be in a bit of bother and the pain that comes with that, which was really difficult because it really flattened us a little bit after that.
"Obviously it’s a bit of a shock. We had Charlotte in a similar situation the last time we played Hashtag.
"It didn’t look great, she’s gone to hospital now and hopefully it won’t be too severe and hopefully she’s a bit more pain free than she was earlier and we wish her really well and hopefully it’s not too serious.”
Reflecting on the defeat, the Blues’ first in the FAWNL Southern Premier Division this season, he added: "A disappointing result. We came here really well prepared, looking to try and pick up three points with a good performance.
"But a tough game. We’ve encountered Hashtag on many occasions, they’ve proved difficult to play against for some time now and we felt that we battled really well with them for large parts of the game. We knew it was going to be really difficult, really physical, really transitional.
"The surface made it a little bit more difficult as well for us to try and establish any sort of control, but we felt that the game would be separated by a counter or a set play and we weren’t able to capitalise on the counter-attacks that we did put together, and we probably would have liked to have been a little bit better from our set plays as well.
"And when you don’t take those opportunities or you don’t create enough, then you run the risk of conceding a goal at the other end and we weren’t able to stop them.”
Town remain second behind Hashtag with six points now separating the teams but with the Blues having three games in hand and a much superior goal difference.