Manchester City head coach Taylor mindful of improving Bristol City

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that he is mindful of Bristol City’s improving league form ahead of the two sides’ meeting at Twerton Park on Wednesday evening.

The Robins looked resigned to relegation at the end of January but the arrival on Matt Beard early last month has prompted an upturn in results.

Bristol City have closed what was a five-point gap between themselves and safety and they now sit a point above new bottom side West Ham United. The Robins have lost just one of their last four matches in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League and Manchester City head coach Taylor is mindful Beard’s improving team ahead of his side’s trip to Bath on Wednesday evening.

“The ideal scenario is that we start the game fast like we have done recently,” said Taylor when speaking in his pre-match press conference in which FAWSL Full-Time were present. “If that is not the case and we don’t go ahead like we have been doing previously early on in games, we need to be patient and keep playing our game knowing that we have the ability to score when it matters.

“They’re a team that did great to reach the final (of the FA Women’s Continental League Cup) and obviously, they’ve had a couple of ok results so far and beat Reading recently.

“It’s one that we need to be mindful of, make sure that we focus on us and be respectful in everything that we do.”

Manchester City were without defensive pair Steph Houghton and Lucy Bronze when they took on Fiorentina in their last match a week ago and Taylor went on to say that they will be assessed ahead of the Bristol City fixture.

He added “We are looking good, we just have to check in on Steph and Lucy and we will make a decision on them tomorrow morning.

“Outside of that, everybody has come through ok and there’s nothing really to report, so we are all good.”

Manchester City’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture at Bristol City is scheduled to kick-off at  7.30pm on Wednesday evening and the match will be available for fans to stream live on the FA Player.

Daniel Pentland

I am the editor and owner of FAWSL Full-Time magazine. I have been reporting on men’s and women’s football at various levels since summer 2015. Some of the events which I have reported from include the 2017 UEFA Women’s European Championship, 2018 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019, SSE Women’s FA Cup final, Emirates FA Cup final, UEFA Europa League, English Football League and various international matches.

See author's posts