Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that his side are not mulling over their FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup defeat to Chelsea and that they are now looking ahead to their next exciting opportunity against Tottenham Hotspur.
The Cityzens travel to the Gaughan Group Stadium to take on Spurs in an Adobe Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie this afternoon. Manchester City are aiming to win the competition for the first time since 2020 this season.
In their last outing, Manchester City fell to a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Chelsea in the semi-finals of the FA Women’s Continental Tyres League Cup. Lauren James’ first half strike was enough to separate the two sides at The Joie Stadium.
When speaking in a Manchester City press conference, head coach Taylor said that there were a lot of positives to come from The Cityzens’ performance despite the defeat.
“Of course, we want to speak of the frustration from the game and the frustration comes from the fact that we actually played really well,” Taylor said. “We were the dominant team, we had obviously a lot more opportunities. We didn’t get much help from the officials, especially at the end when we had that clear penalty.
“We didn’t score the important goal that we needed to, but in terms of performance, it was on a high, high level. The feeling is good.”
Manchester City return to East London this afternoon having already come up against Spurs at the Gaughan Group Stadium on two occasions in this calendar year. Taylor reflected on how the repeat encounters with Spurs could prove to be a far greater help than a hinderance.
He said “I think it’s probably more of a help, I think it’s familiarity. We won’t underestimate anything that Tottenham do and we’ll always be ready for the what ifs that they kind of change. We pretty much know what they’re going to do, they know what we’re going to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to stop.
“The process is the same, everyone is really focused and everyone is really buying into what we want to do which is fantastic. We’re ready and we’re ready to attack the next game.”
Manchester City have had less than three days to prepare for the contest but Taylor is happy with the quick turnaround.
“It’s great that we have another game around the corner,” he said. “This is a good period of the season for us, we’re looking forward to the next challenge.
“We were really unfortunate [against Chelsea], we were really frustrated that we weren’t able to win a trophy that we put a lot of effort into, but we have another opportunity now and that’s what we are going to do.”
Manchester City’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie at Tottenham Hotspur kicks-off at 3pm this afternoon.
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