Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that FA Women’s Continental League Cup quarter-final opponents Bristol City should not be underestimated.
The Cityzens face the FA Women’s Championship club at The Academy Stadium on Wednesday evening as they aim to move to within one victory of another FA Women’s Continental League Cup final appearance.
Despite Manchester City playing at a level higher than Bristol City, Taylor’s side come up against a team who are unbeaten in nine matches in all competitions. When speaking in his pre-match press conference, Taylor recognised the recent achievements of Lauren Smith’s Bristol City side.
“We’ve monitored them, kept an eye on them, they had a good win at the weekend and they’re probably in a slightly false position in their league,” Taylor said. “We see a team that are producing a decent level of performance, they’ve got good physicality in their team, they won their group in the Conti qualification and they got to the final last season.
“They are certainly not a team to be underestimated and we will make sure that we don’t do that.”
Following Bristol City’s relegation from the Barclays FA Women’s Super League in May, the vast majority of their squad departed along with stand-in boss Matt Beard. The club have now appointed Smith as their new head coach and she has overseen a huge rebuilding job at The Robins’ High Performance Centre. Taylor went on to praise the work done at Bristol City since the end of last season.
He said “She’s adapted well to it. Sometimes when you make a lot of changes and there is a lot of player activity in and out, you don’t really know how that is going to go. You might get some short term gains, sometimes you might have to wait a little bit longer for players to bed in.
“They are very aggressive in what they do and they take the game to teams. They are going to provide a tough opposition for us and there is a reason why they’ve got to a quarter-final.”
The FA Women’s Continental League Cup tie between Manchester City and Bristol City kicks-off at 7pm on Wednesday evening.
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