Sporting a bright yellow Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeping kit, hips swaying from side to side, Mary Earps looked up towards Old Trafford’s Sir Bobby Charlton Stand.
Game mode was activated for the return of the ‘Mearps’ in Wednesday’s Champions League tie — the first time she has faced Manchester United since leaving the club after five years for Paris Saint-Germain in summer 2024. There was a perfunctory shake of the hands with her former team-mates before a tickle of boos rang round the 14,667 crowd.
Their jeers, accompanied by whistling, became increasingly louder every time Earps touched the ball — but were not unanimous. Pockets in the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand offered applause, trying to drown out the critics. By midway through the first half, every time Earps was booed, others cheered.
The division was obvious, but Earps has become a divisive character in recent weeks, thanks to the saga over her recently published autobiography, All In, which has dominated the conversation across the women’s game.
The book, published just seven days ago, caused a furore after she criticised Sarina Wiegman’s process to select Hannah Hampton to replace her as England No 1. In some of the subsequent interviews in which Earps defended her comments, she became visibly emotional.
It ensured that Earps was the headline act at Old Trafford last night. Some spectators held placards in support of her, one reading ‘Mary Queen of Stops’. Elloise Walker, wearing a PSG top with Earps’ name on the back, had come 50 miles from Leeds, just to support the player and not United.
Elloise Walker wears a Mary Earps jersey in support of the goalkeeper (Charlotte Harpur/The Athletic)
Others were not quite so effusive.
“Your book is rubbish!” yelled one fan, while another chanted about burning both it and the Earps mural on a wall near the stadium. It was pantomime stuff, even if the saga itself is far more nuanced than that.
PSG women’s head coach Paulo Cesar had “no doubt” Earps was ready to deal with the scrutiny. “Nothing has changed in Mary’s day-to-day,” he told reporters in a press conference before the game. The story did not even register in the French media but PSG have set up Earps with Bodyguard, an application which monitors hate speech on social media and hides toxic comments.
Old Trafford should be a happy place for Earps.
It was here, as a child, that she watched her team, Liverpool, live and in the flesh for the first time. In March 2022, she was part of the United team who played the first women’s match in front of fans at the club’s main stadium. That summer, she was also between the posts as England’s triumphant European Championship finals campaign began here in front of 68,000 with a 1-0 group-phase win against Austria.
United was where she laid her foundations and met the club’s former goalkeeping coach Ian Willcock. ‘Willco’, as he is known, believed she could be the world’s best. Earps played every league game for four consecutive seasons at United, helping to win their women’s team’s first major trophy, the 2024 FA Cup, and to secure Champions League qualification via a second-place finish in the Women’s Super League a year earlier.
In her book, Earps gives different reasons why she moved to PSG after that FA Cup final win, among them slow negotiations on a new contract, broken promises and craving the greater anonymity a life outside England would bring. She felt United were way off being in contention to win the Champions League by 2024 despite, according to Earps, stating that aim when she joined them from German side Wolfsburg. She says she felt “wanted and valued” at PSG and that their facilities were top class.
Ironically, no sooner had Earps joined the French side than they failed to make the Champions League’s group phase, knocked out by Juventus, 5-2 on aggregate, in the second round of qualifying.
In another world, Earps may have been put up for PSG’s pre-match press conference this week to reminisce about her time at United. But she clearly felt she had done enough talking. You imagine all she craved was some normality, routine and a focus on her football, which — for the most part — is what this game offered.
Earps looked steady for much of the first half, authoritatively punching clear from a cross, but on 31 minutes she was beaten when Melvine Malard breezed past Griedge Mbock and deliciously curled the ball into the corner. The boos notched up a level, but by half-time they were tepid. The cheers had subsided, too.
Earps would have been desperate to focus on the football at her old club (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
PSG levelled through Olga Carmona’s wonderstrike in first-half stoppage time, a long-range shot which beat United academy graduate Safia Middleton-Patel. The 21-year-old — Earps’ understudy when she was at the club — generally excelled in just her second senior start for United after being summoned as a late replacement for Earps’ successor Phallon Tullis-Joyce, who withdrew because of a facial injury.
Earps applauded the United fans when she emerged for the second half, a gesture that was reciprocated, but ultimately this was not her night.
Fridolina Rolfo’s 58th-minute header left her helpless and PSG could not muster another response, meaning United’s women recorded their first European win at Old Trafford. All Earps could do was pull up her socks.
This defeat will sting, and not just for personal reasons.
PSG arrived needing a result, after losing both previous games in the league phase against Wolfsburg (4-0) and Real Madrid (2-1). This result keeps them pointless and joint-bottom in the 18-team table, two points behind neighbours Paris FC. They had also been thrashed 6-1 by Lyon in September in the domestic Premiere League, where they are second, three points off the top of the table.
United, in contrast, are one of three sides (along with Barcelona and Lyon, who have won nine of the past 10 Champions Leagues between them) with a maximum nine points at the halfway point in the league phase ahead of tough fixtures away to Wolfsburg next Wednesday and home against Lyon on December 10.
At the full-time whistle, as “Glory, glory Man United” blared out, Earps took a swig from her water bottle, picked up her towel and shook hands with United head coach Marc Skinner. She spent time talking to and hugging several former team-mates among the United players, including captain Maya Le Tissier and good friend and England colleague Ella Toone.
Earps hugs United defender Jayde Riviere after Wednesday’s game at Old Trafford (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Visibly moved, she also embraced her PSG goalkeeping coach Mickael Grondin before clapping and waving to spectators. Those who had stayed on after the game gave her a warm reception, and there was even time for a few selfies.
There were no boos then, but last night proved Earps may continue to be a divisive presence at her old club for some time.