Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor is expecting to come up against a Leicester City side who have learnt some valuable lessons at The Academy Stadium this afternoon.
The Foxes arrive in the North West having lost their last five matches in all competitions. Leicester City have been on the end of some huge scorelines including 9-0 and 7-0 defeats to Chelsea and a 5-0 loss to Arsenal.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time ahead of his side’s latest game, Manchester City boss Taylor said that he expects that his side will face a Leicester City team who will have learnt from their recent heavy losses.
“It’s part of the game that you analyse when you fail, lose a game or haven’t been successful,” Taylor said. “On the other side, it can be dangerous when you are winning a lot as it papers over the cracks on areas that you could potentially improve on.
“For them, success will be staying in the league after their promotion last season, it’s as simple as that. They have got themselves a small cushion but there will be lessons learnt for sure. If you have the opportunity to improve in certain areas then that’s great for the coach but success for them is staying in the league.”
Manchester City are unsurprisingly the overwhelming favourites to win the game. Taylor went on to say that his players have managed similar occasions well and they should be well-prepared for carrying that favourites tag again.
He said “It is something that we have done really well, the players have been great in managing what is in-front of them and not focusing too far ahead. The level of competition has been really good as well, the players know that they still have to earn their positions in the team. There is competition in areas, maybe not in others but it is what it is, that’s where we are trying to get maximum player availability and really improve on our player recruitment in the next few years.
“You have to give the players real credit for managing the now and what’s in-front of them, particularly when you look at that game at West Ham when we had one training session together. You never know what the cohesion is going to be like in those moments but to be fair, I thought we were very, very good.
“Our job as coaches is just to make sure that they focus on Leicester, I don’t think any team is good enough to look further down the line and anticipate what is ahead. The players know that they have to perform to stay in the team, that’s the healthy competition that we want and they have done really well.”
Manchester City’s Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture against Leicester City kicks-off at 2pm.
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