Beth Mead, England's Lionesses and the winners & losers of the Women's Super League season so far

It's often said that, after suffering an ACL injury, players can take several months to look and feel like themselves again, never mind get back to their best. Beth Mead only made her return to the pitch in October but, despite 11 months out, the quality and level of performance she has shown in the time since has been remarkable.

With three goals and an assist to her name already, averaging out at a direct goal involvement every 93 minutes, it's a delight to see such a top class player hitting the ground running after so long on the sidelines. It's early days but, per 90 minutes, Mead is already averaging more successful passes in the final third and chances created than she was last season, too, when she was flying off the back of that incredible European Championship campaign with England, before the devastating injury hit her.

It's all been overwhelmingly positive since she made her comeback and that's excellent news for Arsenal, England and the WSL in general, as Mead is right near the top of the list when it comes to the league's most exciting players to watch. From a neutral perspective, long may it continue.

Yes, Chelsea are top of the WSL as 2023 comes to a close and they are in pole position to win a fifth successive title, though there is a long way to go yet. But what has been the biggest story in the league in the first half of the campaign? The news that manager Emma Hayes will leave her post at the end of the season.

Hayes and Chelsea have done incredible things together. When the 47-year-old took over this team in 2012, they had little history of success in the women's game. She has transformed them into the dominant force in English women's football, winning 15 major honours in the process while establishing herself as one of the very best in the game.

It's no surprise, then, that the United States women's national team have come knocking as they themselves look to reassert themselves at the top of the sport. It's an exciting move if you are a fan of the U.S. or if you are a neutral, as it's sure to be interesting to watch this new partnership unfold.

But if you're Chelsea, it's devastating news. Of course, Hayes will leave this team in a marvellous place and whoever her successor is will come into a club that is massively committed to its women's team, they will have impressive investment behind them, a fantastic infrastructure to work in and a world-class squad at their disposal. To replace Hayes will be no easy task, though. Those are huge shoes to fill and Chelsea have a hell of a job on as they bid to find the right person for such a role.

If it wasn't for the January signing of Beth England, would Spurs be in the WSL this season? It's hard to argue so. The England star scored 12 goals in 12 games to help fire the north London side to safety in the first half of the year, their torrid form costing head coach Rehanne Skinner her job in that run-in. The squad was peppered with quality but Skinner's successor was always going to have quite a job on to improve this team and turn it into one with an identity, especially with England ruled out for the first few months after undergoing hip surgery.

Enter Robert Vilahamn. After guiding Hacken to the Champions League group stages and two cup finals in his native Sweden, the 40-year-old was appointed Spurs' new head coach in July and there were some early concerns when the team failed to find the back of the net at all in pre-season. However, Vilahamn has done tremendous work with this team and the players deserve credit for implementing his ideas brilliantly in such a short space of time. Sitting sixth as the league enters its winter break, Spurs have proven themselves to be a dangerous team, dangerous enough, even, to beat north London rivals Arsenal for the first time in a shock result in the final weekend before Christmas.

There have been a couple of heavy defeats under the Swede but he stuck to his guns, despite some people possibly thinking, in his own words, that he would be "stupid" to do so - and it has paid off. Comparing this Spurs team to that which was floundering near the bottom of the table at the beginning of the year is like night and day. There's so much to be impressed by.

Man Utd boss Marc Skinner will have plenty of aims and targets noted down for his team this season - in the WSL, in the domestic cups and at the negotiating table, too, with stars such as Mary Earps and Leah Galton each into the final year of their contracts with the club. But they are not the only ones, as Skinner, too, only has a few months left on his deal with the Red Devils.

With him bidding to impress the club to get an extension, it's not been a great start. Defeat in the second qualifying round of the Champions League wasn't shameful, with Paris Saint-Germain an experienced and top quality opponent, but disappointing draws with Leicester and Brighton combined with an unpopular defeat to rivals Man City at Old Trafford and a shock loss to Liverpool has left them seven points off pacesetters Chelsea going into the Christmas break. In a league where the top teams rarely drop points, that's a lot.

Of course, there is no expectation on Man Utd - still very early in their journey compared to their rivals at the top - to win the title this season but these results have left them on the back foot in the hunt to secure European football as well. Skinner needs to guide his team to a big second half of the season, really, to earn the chance to stick around.

Bunny Shaw was so unfortunate to miss out on the WSL's Golden Boot last season. The Man City star was outstanding, scoring 20 goals in 22 games, but she was pipped to the award by a record-breaking Rachel Daly. The Aston Villa forward scored 22 times in the league, matching Vivianne Miedema's record for the most goals in a single season that she set back in 2018-19.

But as the division heads into the winter break, Shaw is leading this term's race. Though she can often be marked out of the 'bigger' games, getting special attention which can certainly be an advantage for her team-mates with the space it gives them instead, the Jamaica international has been far too hot to handle when City start purring, bagging hat-tricks in wins over Spurs and Everton, a brace against Bristol and getting on the scoresheet at Old Trafford when Manchester was painted blue.

Shaw goes into the break with a two-goal lead on Lauren James, she's four ahead of Lauren Hemp and has scored five more than both Sam Kerr and Daly, the two names that most would have expected to be battling her for that Golden Boot. If City can continue to be consistent in the games that they are expected to win, then the accolade may well belong to their No.21 come the end of the season.

Their men's side might be able to call themselves champions of Europe after winning the UEFA Conference League but it's been a pretty awful 2023 for West Ham's women's team. The Hammers have won just two WSL games all year, losing 15 of their 22 outings in the competition. Such form led to Paul Konchesky leaving his role as head coach at the end of last season, the London club having won just one of their 12 league games after the winter break.

More damning was a post on Instagram by long-serving player Kate Longhurst. "I’ve played and dedicated nearly 30 years of my life to football. And not once in my whole career have I felt so low on confidence and destroyed as I am in this moment," she wrote. "We need something to change, to bring that belief back and we hope we can do that soon."

A new coach, in former Tottenham boss Rehanne Skinner, and the recruitment of two exciting forwards in the summer, with Japan star Riko Ueki following England youngster Emma Harries to the club, hasn't done much to stop that decline, either. West Ham lost two promising defenders in the same transfer window, with Grace Fisk joining Liverpool and Lucy Parker leaving for Aston Villa, and though there have been some decent performances at times, their form has been just as dire under Skinner as it was in Konchesky's final months.

Indeed, the current coach, who was sacked by Spurs in March as they fell into serious relegation trouble, has a pretty torrid record in the WSL. With the two London clubs, Skinner has taken just five points from the last 57 available, which hardly makes for inspiring reading.

Will those fortunes change in the New Year? They will have to if West Ham want to avoid relegation, as they're only off the bottom of the table on goal difference as a dreadful 2023 concludes.

Did any club in the WSL have a better summer transfer window than Liverpool? It's hard to argue so. The Reds, only in their second season back at the top table after relegation at the end of 2019-20, have been excellent in the first half of this campaign and their off-season arrivals have played a huge part in that.

When the departure of star striker Katie Stengel was announced, there were some understandable concerns on the red side of Merseyside about losing a player of such importance. But the club has done brilliantly to replace her and add pieces to other areas of the squad that have helped elevate it without disrupting the chemistry already there.

Sophie Roman Haug has filled Stengel's boots well as Liverpool's new star striker, scoring three goals and providing two assists in her first 10 games in the WSL. Marie Hobinger has been similarly prolific and effective in midfield, Australia goalkeeper Teagan Micah has shown glimpses of why she is so highly rated in a string of recent starts, Grace Fisk has brought quality to the defence and teenager Mia Enderby has proved to be a wonderful super sub in her early experiences in the top-flight.

With the additional aid of a fantastic January window, one which saw Liverpool bring former captain Gemma Bonner back to the club and add the understated Japan international Fuka Nagano to the midfield, manager Matt Beard is building himself a squad of real quality and he's doing it with the patience required for everything to come together well. The club deserves huge credit.

Aston Villa were the story of the 2022-23 WSL season. Some fantastic recruitment, Carla Ward's ability to get the best out of her players and some truly brilliant performances rocketed the Villans up the table to a best-ever finish of fifth, as well as helping them to reach the semi-finals of the Women's FA Cup for the first time.

Coming into this campaign, then, off the back of another impressive transfer window, some suggested they might be capable of upsetting the applecart to the point of challenging for a European place. However, it's been really tough for Villa, who lost all of their first five league games of the season.

They've been unlucky at times, with both Man Utd and Arsenal scoring stoppage time winners against Ward's side in October. They were depleted on the attacking front in the early stages of the season, due to Kenza Dali's injury and Kirsty Hanson's suspension, that making Daly's chances of repeating her ridiculous goal-per-game season from last time out even more unlikely. The fixtures weren't kind to Villa either, with them having to take on all of last year's top three in their first five outings.

Things have improved in recent weeks, with wins over Bristol, West Ham and Brighton meaning they sit ninth, four points clear of danger, at the break but the team will certainly be disappointed to be where they are after 10 games. With a kinder run of games upon the league's restart in January, another transfer window coming up for them to excel in and a run of good form building, they will hope that they can show levels closer to their best in the second half of the campaign.

It's not been a great few months for England's women's national team. After reaching the World Cup final in August, the Lionesses had a disappointing UEFA Women's Nations League campaign that ended with them failing to secure a place in the competition's finals for themselves, or a spot in next year's Olympic women's football tournament for Great Britain. However, anyone who has watched the WSL this season will know that there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about England's future as so many young stars have been shining in the top flight in these last few months.

Khiara Keating, just 19 years old, has assumed the role of Man City's first-choice goalkeeper and has earned herself a first senior call-up for her country as a result, as has Grace Clinton thanks to her impressive performances in midfield at Spurs. There have been plenty of people calling for Aggie Beever-Jones to follow in their footsteps, too, the 20-year-old having scored five goals in six appearances for Chelsea this season despite largely acting as an impact sub.

Be it the young English duo of Naomi Layzell and Brooke Aspin who have been excellent in Bristol's defence, the assist-laden performances of Maisie Symonds in Brighton's midfield or the impact the aforementioned Enderby has been making at Liverpool - everywhere you look in the WSL this season there are positive stories for the future of the England team.