Liverpool’s captain Sophie Bradley-Auckland has temporarily left the club in order to help look after her family-run care home during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

The 30 year-old defender says she has ‘lost sleep’ over the ‘difficult’ decision she knew she had to make. 

Instead of returning to the pitch to help her side gain promotion back into the Women’s Super League, she will be managing the Edenhurst care home in Nottingham. 

Bradley-Auckland, who has made 33 appearances for the side, told the club’s website: "With the current situation it's made me have to make a decision, one that's been awful and I've actually lost sleep about it.

“The fact is that I can't return to Liverpool until a risk isn't posed on the care home.

“My happiness - and that's what I call playing football, which is my happiness, is something that I love to do - isn't worth somebody's life and that is what it is as well. It is actually risking somebody's life.”

The England international also made clear that all coronavirus tests from the care home have come back negative so far. 

She added: “I have a duty of care. I've got 24 residents, actually 24 other members of my family I would call them, and I would never want to pose any further risk on them than what's already there.

"I’m still a Red. I will be back at Liverpool but unfortunately at this moment in time it’s not possible for me to come, so I think it’s very much up in the air.

“All I’m holding onto is that I’ll be back. My training continues before I go to work and I’ll always be fit and ready to come back whenever that risk is not there on the care home.”