Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that he is expecting a tough game from Aston Villa when the pair meet at The Academy Stadium at lunchtime.
Seven of Aston Villa’s 10 points gained so far this season have come from their matches on the road with Carla Ward’s side proving to be a real tough nut to crack.
Ward is expected to set her side out in a 5-4-1 formation against Manchester City and they will be prepared to battle and scrap for everything.
When speaking in his pre-match press conference, Manchester City boss Taylor highlighted Aston Villa’s improvement this season whilst adding that The Villans will look to make it very difficult for his side.
“The focus is on getting a positive result,” Taylor said. “Villa, you’ve seen already this season, they’ve improved. Carla (Ward) has added a different dimension to them and I think they made it difficult for Chelsea in a previous encounter in the last couple of weeks, Chelsea just edged it.
“It’s not going to be an easy outcome for us and football never is no matter who you play against. I think people anticipate when they see the game on paper that it’s done beforehand but certainly in this moment, we can’t take anything for granted. We’ve got to make sure that we are really key on our small details and approach the game in the right manner. If we take care of the performance, it usually takes care of the result.”
Taylor went on to say that getting an early goal could help his side create more space for them to play their game and would disrupt Aston Villa’s game plan.
He said “It is always dependent upon that goal, the earlier you get that goal potentially teams will come out a little bit more and the spaces become bigger than they were previously.
“Teams will get encouraged when they play that way the longer that it goes on (at 0-0). When it’s quite tight, it becomes a difficult game for the opponent so it’d be great if we can (score early) but it is important that we remain with positional discipline, make sure we get the ball into the wide areas, make sure that we get people into the box, make sure that we get forward runs, all of the things that we look for in every game.
“In this type of game, if they do set up in that way (5-4-1), it just makes it slightly different in the size and the areas of the space.”
The Barclays FA Women’s Super League fixture between Manchester City and Aston Villa kicks-off at 11.30am and tickets can be purchased by clicking here.
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