‘I felt like a ticking time bomb ready to explode’: Aston Villa goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck opens up about recovering from a stroke

When their Women’s Super League season gets underway against Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday, Aston Villa will have a new face between the posts.

Ellie Roebuck joined Villa after the mutual termination of her contract at Barcelona, the Spanish club where Villa manager Natalia Arroyo made her name.

The new Villa goalkeeper won the WSL as part of Manchester City’s squad in 2016, just one of the seven medals she would eventually collect before leaving the club that plucked her out of Sheffield United’s academy at the age of 15.

She signed a pre-contract agreement with Barcelona in the spring of 2024 but things had started to go very badly wrong. Roebuck had pushed herself too hard, lost too much weight, trained too much. Her body was telling her so and her match sharpness was diminished.

‘I felt like I’d wasted my one life’

In a revealing article published by The Players’ Tribune in the days before the start of the 2025-26 season, Roebuck discusses the extent of the mental scars left behind by what came next. At the age of 24, she was told that she’d suffered a stroke.

“I felt like I’d wasted my one life,” she says. “I thought about all the hours I’d wasted in the gym, all the time that I’d put into my career. All that stress I put myself under… and for what?

“At that moment, I didn’t care about football anymore.”

Between her last appearance for City and her first for Barcelona, Roebuck didn’t play a match for 18 months. Her account of the early days of her recovering is harrowing.

“The biggest barrier of all was my mind. To anybody who dismisses the symptoms of anxiety, trust me, they are very much real and physical,” adds the new Villa stopper.

“After I found out I’d had a stroke, even simple balance and head movements terrified me. I would turn my whole body left and right just to look around. I felt like a ticking time bomb ready to explode any second.”

Roebuck was part of the England squad that won the European Championship in 2022 but spent the 2025 tournament working as a television pundit while her exit from Barcelona and agreement with Villa were in the works.

With the support of her family and a renewed understanding of what’s healthy both physically and mentally, Roebuck is attacking the new season with an impressive attitude and is sure to be a great asset for Arroyo and her Villa team.

“That time taught me a lot about myself,” she admits. “I’m not Ellie the obsessive trainer anymore. And I value life a lot more. I’m not in the gym when I should be out for dinner with my family.

“Looking back on everything, the pressure I put on myself is my biggest regret. It got me nowhere. The medals, the achievements, I don’t know if I ever even enjoyed achieving them, because I was always looking for the next thing.

“After my stroke, I made a promise to myself that, moving forward, I will enjoy every win, every moment on the training pitch. Every meal with my family. Every walk with my dog. No matter how hard it gets.

“Now, I’m excited to start my new chapter at Aston Villa.”

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