Derby County Ladies have signalled their intent for the new season with the signing of hugely experienced Women's Super League forward, Nicole Dale from Aston Villa.

Dale (24) started her career at Sheffield Wednesday before eventually progressing to the WSL firstly with Doncaster Belles and more recently Villa. However despite being born and bred in Derby and a staunch Rams fan, she has never appeared for her home town club. According to Dale, the timing feels right and she is excited at the prospect of joining a club with WSL ambitions of their own. " Derby have come on significantly as a club in recent years, and in terms of their structure and impressive off the field developments, everything is set up for the WSL. As a Derby girl I've naturally wanted to turn out for my home town club and I feel that with the plans that the manager has for the squad that the timing was right. It really does feel like I've come home to a certain extent and I hope that my experience can prove to be of use in pushing us on towards the top end of the Premier League "

According to Manager, John Bennett (pictured with Dale), the signing is hopefully the first of a number that he is looking to make as he looks to enhance a squad that finished 7th last season, having initially topped the table for the first three months. " Nicole is exactly the type of player that I want to bring into the group, to not only complement the players that we have but to help them develop their own games. She is a player that we identified very early as one that we wanted to get in and whilst a number of other clubs were naturally interested we are glad that she has put pen to paper with us. Whilst she's a Derby girl and a Rams fan, players of Nicole's standard sign with their head and not their hearts and she is joining us for purely footballing reasons "

The club are expected to announce further signings shortly.