Man Utd confirm Mary Earps will leave Old Trafford as Paris Saint-Germain circle

Women’s Super League side Man Utd have confirmed that England goalkeeper Mary Earps will leave the club following the expiry of her contract.

It is the second significant departure in as many days after captain Katie Zelem’s exit was announced on Friday.

Earps, 31, has been widely linked with a move to Paris St Germain.

The Euro 2022 winner joined Man Utd in 2019 and made 125 appearances for the club. During the 2022-23 WSL season, Earps kept 14 clean sheets to set a new league record, and a few months later she was fifth in the voting for the Ballon d’Or, the highest a goalkeeper had ever finished.

Last season, Earps was in the Man Utd side that beat Tottenham 4-0 at Wembley in the Women’s FA Cup Final, securing the club’s first major trophy.

A club statement said: “Everyone at Manchester United would like to thank Mary for her fine service and wish her the best of luck in the next stage of her career.”

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Man Utd boss Marc Skinner has work to do in reshaping his squad this summer, with striker Lucia Garcia also leaving.

Reacting to Earps winning the goalkeeper gong at the FIFA Best awards in March, Skinner said: “It’s a wonderful achievement and thoroughly deserved.

“You never know how these awards are going to go, you never know whether the best person actually wins the award. But in this case, she certainly did.

“She brought it in this morning, the girls gave her a huge round of applause. They’ve all been in contact throughout anyway. And I felt the speech she gave afterwards was truly beautiful.

“We’ve got her some flowers and just made a real fuss of her, because she absolutely deserves it. Her ability to win things like that just cements the quality she has.”

Earps said the award was “for anyone who has ever been in a dark place”, adding: “Just know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Keep going, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

“Sometimes success looks like this, collecting trophies, sometimes it’s just waking up and putting one step in front of the other. There’s only one of you in the world, and that’s more than good enough. Be unapologetically yourself.”

Skinner spoke about Earps as an inspiration for youngsters, saying: “I think what it says is there is a platform here (at United) for you to go on to produce the qualities.

“You still have to do what Mary has done, which is to produce the qualities every day that make her better. But there is always an opportunity.

“What I think the power in it is, and I think Ian (Willcock, United’s goalkeeping coach) is going to try to capitalise on this, is that especially within England, especially within the local Manchester area, is to try to grow our own Mary Earps going forward, to promote that young players, who I’m sure she has inspired, can go on to aspire to be like Mary.”