Manchester City manager Gareth Taylor has praised his side’s response to the setback against Manchester United last time out in the Barclays Women’s Super League (WSL).
On Sunday, the Cityzens were beaten by their bitter rivals in a six-goal thriller at the Etihad Stadium. Despite goals from Vivianne Miedema and Rebecca Knaak in January, Ella Toone’s hat-trick and Leah Galton’s first-half goal resulted in a 4-2 defeat for the hosts.
Defeat resulted City plummeted down the standings and took fourth place United, Arsenal and Chelsea. They are now two points off third and second place, but a worrying nine points behind leaders Chelsea with 11 games played.
Despite the setback, City responded in emphatic fashion against United in the Subway Women’s League Cup in midweek. They won their quarter-final clash 2-1 at Leigh Sports Village to set up a semi-final meeting with Arsenal next month.
Speaking ahead of this weekend WSL away to Aston Villa, Taylor praised his players’ reaction to the defeat and their determination to put things right just three days later.
“This team has always shown that we fight until the end,” the coach told reporters at a press conference Thursday afternoon. “We always fight back when we have suffered.
“We try not to let it affect us. Of course it hurts, but we don’t let it affect us too much. This was a perfect game for us, we played our rivals again after Sunday and settled a few scores.
“I thought there was real determination from the players in that regard, especially the way we closed the game. We were very good.”
City have a golden opportunity to close the gap on their rivals this weekend with Arsenal and Chelsea set to face off at Stamford Bridge. United also play Brighton on Sunday, who are currently fifth in the table after a strong first half of the season.
Taylor stressed the importance of City getting back to winning ways in the league as they aim to capitalize on potential points lost elsewhere.
“We have to do it,” he added. “We have to really fight in this next WSL game and playing Villa against Villa is very difficult. The schedule has not been very good for us, the only game that is played on Saturday is between us and Villa. They did not play in the middle of the week, also we have problems with injuries that test the team a bit.
“I liked what I saw last night in terms of determination and being able to fight and compete against physical players.”
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