Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor was pleased to see his players find solutions to unlock a defence-minded Everton side in their 4-0 victory in this afternoon’s Vitality Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie at The Academy Stadium.
The Cityzens attacked the visitors from the very first minute and despite initially not getting their rewards, they kept chipping away, eventually running out emphatic 4-0 winners.
Everton set up in a 5-4-1 formation in a bid to remain in the game for the entirety, asking questions of Manchester City’s attack. The Cityzens quickly came up with all of the answers though, opening up Chris Roberts’ side on numerous occasions as they made easy work of their opponents.
When speaking to FAWSL Full-Time after the match, Manchester City boss Taylor was full of praise for his players after they combined so well to open up Everton and win the tie in very convincing fashion.
“It can be difficult sometimes when you are playing against a 5-4-1, it probably means that we are going to be on the ball a lot on or around the halfway line and Everton are going to control the spaces between the halfway line and their goal,” Taylor said.
“I felt that the interaction of the players in the first half after 10 minutes of working out the opposition was impressive, the players complimented each other really well. Sometimes Lucy (Bronze) was moving into attacking midfielder positions, Filippa (Angeldahl) was moving outside, Jess (Park) was causing problems with Lauren (Hemp) on the wing so full credit to the players, they adapted and found the solutions.”
Lauren Hemp scored two goals including an impressive flick while Caroline Weir hit another long range thunderbolt. There was also a close range goal for Ellen White. Weir’s effort was arguably the pick of the bunch but Taylor admitted that he missed the goal.
He said “We’ve been struggling to score in the first half in the last half a dozen games but we’ve been free-scoring in the second half so it was good that we got our reward for our dominance in the first period, we could have got a few more.
“Caroline’s goal was a wonder-goal, I actually missed it. I watched it back which was pretty good but I was busy getting the substitutions ready and getting the information onto the players who were coming onto the pitch. It was a fantastic goal.”
The semi-final draw could pair Manchester City with either one of the Barclays FA Women’s Super League’s top two or sixth-placed West Ham United. Despite The Hammers being the most favourable draw on paper, Taylor sees every potential opponent as a challenge.
“West Ham are deserving of their place in the semi-finals and even if we were to draw them, I don’t think it’d be an easy game,” Taylor said. “You are going to have to beat really good teams to get to the final and then the final is a different case all together.
“We had a really difficult opponent in the previous round against Manchester United, sooner or later you have to face these teams. Regardless of whether it is West Ham or one of the other teams, we will pay respect to all of them.”
Manchester City are back in action on Wednesday evening when Everton are again the visitors to The Academy Stadium, this time for a Barclays FA Women’s Super League match.
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