Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that he wants his side to use home advantage well when they face Aston Villa at The Academy Stadium this lunchtime.
The Cityzens take on an ever-improving Aston Villa side which boasts some quality international players such as Jordan Nobbs and Rachel Daly. The Villans got their impressive season underway with a thrilling 4-3 victory over Manchester City at Villa Park on the opening day back in September.
With Manchester City now set to play host to Carla Ward’s side, head coach Taylor says that he wants his side to use playing at The Academy Stadium to their advantage.
“They’ve changed a lot, they’ve added to their player roster and again in January as well,” Taylor said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “They’ve signed some experience, they’ve signed some quality as well so there are no surprises that they’ve done okay,
“They’re a good opponent for us to face. We are looking forward to the home tie and being able to use that to our advantage.”
Taylor went on to discuss Aston Villa’s development in detail. With Barclays Women’s Super League clubs’ squad sizes on the rise, the Manchester City boss believes that The Villans have taken full advantage of quality players becoming available for transfer.
He said “You can see improvements from teams and you can see more activity in January than what we have seen in recent years. That’s probably due to a number of things; teams looking to improve, player availability….most teams’ squads are getting bigger and what happens with that is that players become restless if they are not playing and want to get out on loan so you get a decent calibre of player that becomes available, that’s certainly the case with Villa. It takes time to mould a team and just because you have got all of the options doesn’t always mean that you get it right.
“They’re (Aston Villa) are moving in the right direction and they’ll be pleased with what they are doing but for us, it is about focusing on what we do, how we can impact our game on them, imposing ourselves on them and it’s something that we look forward to doing.”
Manchester City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa kicks-off at 11.30am. Tickets remain available and can be purchased by clicking here.
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