Impetus’ Jonathan Stack was in Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor‘s media conference for us yesterday, and there was certainly no panic after his team’s tough summer and start to the season (24/9/22).
Above: Gareth Taylor speaks to the media ahead of tomorrow’s huge game at Chelsea. Photo: Manchester City FC.
Manchester City are looking to get their season up and running this weekend with head coach Gareth Taylor looking for a much-improved performance in the big WSL clash at Kingsmeadow against Chelsea tomorrow.
In what was already a difficult summer with big players leaving to pastures new and players hanging up their boots, trying to fill in the gaps proved to be quite the task. City are already facing an uphill battle after losing to Aston Villa 4-3 at Villa Park last Sunday. Things don’t get any easier with a trip to the Champions of England who themselves suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to newly promoted Liverpool at Prenton Park last week.
These two teams who finished first and third last season, as well as contesting a superb high-quality FA Cup Final, would not have been expecting to start the season on the back foot, but with both teams suffering opening day defeats, this match now proves to be massive.
City manager Taylor gave his thoughts on both team’s opening day reverses saying: “I wasn’t surprised that Liverpool got something out of the game (against Chelsea). We played them in pre-season and they’re a tough outfit. Same with Aston Villa, a completely different team from last season, lots of changes, and when those players play well, anyone can beat anyone.
“There’s no change in that respect. For us, we know it’s going to be a really tough game, it’s their first home game but we’re looking forward to the challenge. We’ll hopefully show a better version of ourselves without the ball this time. Regardless of the team we pick, we’re expecting a good level and will try to make it difficult for Chelsea on their own patch but also show our best version with the ball.”
Australian international Alanna Kennedy could be in contention to feature this weekend after picking up a thigh injury on international duty against Canada earlier this month. Taylor provided an update on the defender saying: “There’s a couple of players who are being monitored closely, but nothing too different to what we had last week. Alanna should be in a better place, she wasn’t able to make the bench last week, so we think she’ll be back in contention, hopefully after another training session.
“But there has been no real change from last weekend (in terms of availability), so pretty good. We’ve got good options. When you have them, it gives you a bit of a selection headache, the players are probably aware that, although we didn’t get off on the right foot last week, there were some elements of our play that were quite good.”
Chelsea v Manchester City, at Kingsmeadow tomorrow, 4pm kick-off local time.
This article is one of three this weekend previewing tomorrow’s big game at Kingsmeadow. The first was Kieran Yap‘s reflections from Chelsea boss Emma Hayes‘ media conference yesterday: https://impetusfootball.org/2022/09/23/emma-hayes-previews-chelseas-huge-clash-with-city/
Second was Jonathan Tay‘s profile and analysis of City’s new teenage superstar signing Mary Fowler: https://impetusfootball.org/2022/09/24/matildas-in-the-wsl-harder-better-fowler-stronger/
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