Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor hailed his side’s fightback as they came from behind to defeat Bristol City 3-1 in the quarter-finals of the FA Women’s Continental League Cup this evening.
Alex Greenwood’s own goal handed the visitors an early lead at The Academy Stadium but a Khadija Shaw brace and another Vicky Losada goal ensured that The Cityzens won the match and secured their place in the semi-finals.
After winning their last three games ‘to nil’, going a goal down was an unfamiliar feeling for Manchester City and head coach Taylor was delighted with the character shown by his side to turn the game around.
“We just slightly switched off,” Taylor told FAWSL Full-Time after the match. “It was hard to criticise the girls because they were in discussion, the communication levels were good. When you have two players talking to each other in defence and two players talking to each other in midfield and straight away Bristol City are taking a kick, we were always chasing. Lucy (Bronze) had some issues out wide, the cross came in and there was no real danger and it was just one of those things.
“I thought the fightback was really good, really positive. We remained relatively calm in a difficult situation and eventually showed our class.”
While forward Shaw stole the show with her double, midfielder Losada netted for a fourth consecutive game and Taylor was full of praise for the Spaniard and her midfield colleagues.
He said “Vicky scores goals and she probably should have had the match ball tonight. I gave her a compliment and said that I expected more from her with her quality because she brings that. What we are seeing is a player who is now developing a bit of rhythm in her game, she controls the tempo well.
“I thought we managed the midfield areas quite well tonight regardless of whether it was Laura (Coombs), Filippa (Angeldahl) or Vicky in there and it was good to bring on Caroline Weir and see her back. We have got players who are scoring goals like Vicky, Georgia (Stanway) I think should have scored again tonight and she would have took it to something like eight goals in six games or something like that.
“The good thing is that they are getting in those positions and we are scoring at the moment. We just need to make sure that when it comes to those important moments, that the percentages ride up and we are making sure that we score more than we miss.”
Manchester City will now face either Manchester United, Chelsea or Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-finals.
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