Women’s Super League 2023-24 previews No 9: Manchester City

The plan

To improve on last season’s fourth place and challenge for the WSL title. If missing out on Champions League qualification on goal difference last term hurt, Gareth Taylor and his players could cite mitigating circumstances. The summer of 2022 proved turbulent at the Etihad campus with four leading City lights exiting stage left and another retiring. While England’s Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh defected to Barcelona, their international teammate Georgia Stanway departed for Bayern Munich and Ellen White, the Lionesses’ record goalscorer, hung up her boots. By then Scotland’s Caroline Weir had also already left for Real Madrid. Given that context, a top-four place represented respectability.

Now a team still studded with England internationals and unbeaten at home in the league last season needs to kick on and secure European qualification. While the Netherlands midfielder Jill Roord looks an excellent summer midfield signing, much will be expected of the Australia forward Mary Fowler following some impressive performances at the World Cup. Indeed Taylor must trust Fowler and Jamaica’s Khadija Shaw can morph into a near irrepressible attacking duo. “This group of players has the potential to turn nearly moments into actual moments,” says City’s manager. “This team can reach the next level.”

City will attempt to arrive there playing the sort of broadly Spanish-influenced one and two-touch football their 4-3-3-loving manager adores. “We love having the ball at our feet and controlling possession,” says Taylor’s captain, Steph Houghton. Big on and keen to implement “a shared vision of beautiful football” City’s manager is very much a Pep Guardiola disciple. “My coaching style and philosophy is important to me,” says Taylor. “We want to win but we want to win with a bit of style and class. I have some fundamental morals that I hold dear. I’m so excited about 2023-24. We’ve been in a transitional period over the past 12 months and I know the pressure is on us to succeed … but I enjoy that.”

From a financial perspective it can only help that City have become the first WSL side to secure a naming rights deal for their ground. Accordingly the former Academy Stadium is now the Joie Stadium following a commercial tie up with the baby gear brand.

The manager

A former Wales and, among several other clubs, Manchester City striker, Gareth Taylor previously coached City’s men youth sides. The 50-year-old succeeded Nick Cushing in 2020 and, after initially taking a little time to adjust his managerial style to suit his new role, now appears immensely popular with his players. Although Taylor never quite reached a rapprochement with Bronze he has forged a strong bond with his captain, Houghton. “Me and Gaz have worked together for three years now and he’s developed me as a centre-half in ways I didn’t think I could progress,” says Houghton. “I think I’m playing the best football of my career.” Earlier this year Taylor signed a contract extension keeping him in post until at least the end of this season.

Star player

Alex Greenwood. A left-sided central defender or full-back with a wand of a left foot, Greenwood shone for England during their run to the World Cup final in Australia. While her international teammates Lauren Hemp and Chloe Kelly, not to mention the Jamaica striker Shaw, also exude star quality, Greenwood’s defensive poise allied to a rare ability to turn defence into attack courtesy of stellar distribution skills, make her arguably the cornerstone of Taylor’s team. At 30, she has evolved into a class act. Her defensive partnership with Houghton could prove key this season.

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High-profile summer signing

Jill Roord. The goalscoring Netherlands midfielder is only 26 but has already helped her country win Euro 2017 while proving a key component of trophy-hunting teams at Bayern Munich, Arsenal and Wolfsburg. Roord joins from Wolfsburg where she scored 31 goals in 69 appearances and now hopes to add to her already sizeable silverware collection in Manchester. “I really like the way City play and I feel that it suits me perfectly,” she said after signing a three-year contract. “There’s so much quality in this team and it’s young, with plenty of potential. In conversations with Gareth [Taylor] before joining I heard everything I wanted to hear. I hope we’ll be very successful together.”

World Cup delight/heartache

Fourteen of Taylor’s squad headed to the World Cup en route to representing seven countries. Foremost among them were the midfielder Laura Coombs who made her World Cup debut for England at the age of 32 and the forwards Shaw and Fowler, who shone for Jamaica and Australia respectively. Ditto England’s centre-half Greenwood and the forward-cum-winger Hemp.

Lauren Hemp scored for England against Australia in their World Cup semi-final victory. Photograph: Abbie Parr/AP

This year City and luxury working womenswear group The Fold have collaborated via the social media campaign: “Preparation is Everything.” Designed to boost female confidence, it is intended to help women not merely dress for career success but adopt the right mindset for advancement while also promoting female role models and gender equality. Talking of which, back in 2018 City’s men and women’s sides merged their social media channels under the banner “Same City, Same Passion.”