Friday Ramble: The Safe Option
Gareth Taylor is set to stay at Manchester City. On Friday, he talked about plans for next season and "fine margins" that have denied his team. Plus, I answer your questions.
“Manchester City I actually think are the best football team at their peak. For whatever reason though they have these drops, maybe it was all the changes last summer.”
The words of Everton head coach Brian Sørensen ahead of Saturday’s final match of the Women’s Super League, which sees two teams go head-to-head whose positions can’t change, barring a miracle for Gareth Taylor’s side this weekend.
Sørensen expanded on his view of Man City, who are set to miss out on a European spot and finish outside the top three, that they are tougher to play against despite their dips in and out of top form.
“I’ll be interested to see where we are at on Saturday because they are the by far the best team we’ve played against. Their composure on the ball, how they pass and play. City have patterns of play and principles they stick to and believe in it. Maybe they are a bit one-dimensional, I haven’t really seen a formation change.
“I train my team in two formations. We change all the time depending on what we face and if you go down that route you have to the best at it. With Chelsea, you have no idea how they’ll line up, but the football is maybe not as exciting as City. When City played at Arsenal, it was some of the best football I’ve seen in this league this season, yet they’ve lost 2-1!”
When I put these comments to Taylor, he said he wouldn’t be “arrogant” enough to claim his team play the best football and that he has respect for every coach and how they utilise their own specific talents, but he was happy to at least hear the praise from elsewhere after a tough season.
"Firstly, it's really nice to hear those comments,” he said. “It's something which makes you proud as a coach, especially when you want to entertain the fans. Our fans have been fantastic this season and I think they're on board with us and understand what we want to achieve, understand the transition we've had in terms of the squad. We've spoken about the difficulties of getting everyone to go in one direction but I've been really impressed with the players.
“On the fine margins, sometimes you can feel so far away from it, it's untrue, but actually the reality is you can feel really close and vice versa. We're really disappointed we haven't got the job done in Europe, it was in our hands. The losses at Arsenal, where we were great, and Liverpool where we weren't. We're talking about goal difference being the only way we can do it and six or seven games ago we were three points off the top. You have to pay credit to Chelsea for how they seem to get things done and we need to learn from that, improve ourselves and we all need to improve, I need to improve.
“We can't give anything away cheap. Sometimes things go against you with the red card and the penalty the other day, like I've spoken about. Every coach can go over the hard luck stories, but these are the things that can help you massively and if you don't you have to help yourselves. We're a young team, players like Steph [Houghton] are huge to that, and like I said it's squeezing 1% out of every situation, every player, next season, improving on every little thing.”
It was reported this week that despite a failure to qualify for the Champions League, Taylor will sign a short-term extension to remain as head coach next season.
A move which has been received lukewarm at best by supporters, it does make some sense given the structural changes behind the scenes and the addition of Nils Nielsen as Head of Football, and at least in their first two seasons Taylor showed City could both win trophies and challenge for a title under his leadership, despite a big injury crisis.
Relevant Read: Nils Nielsen offers a glimpse of Manchester City’s future
A squad overhaul in the summer has led to a season which has seen excellent highs and frustrating and confusing lows, but Taylor said this time around the squad would be “very similar” next season and wouldn’t be going heavy on recruitment, preferring instead to develop what he has.
"I think it's going to be more down that path and we're all aligned on that and really on side with what the plan looks like,” he said. “It won't be a huge overhaul, it will be minimal disruption, maybe one player in terms of coming in.
“It goes back to what we said before, squeezing everything out of what we have. Squeezing more out of Lauren [Hemp], Chloe [Kelly], Bunny [Shaw]. Can we get more out of Bunny? I think we can. Mary Fowler is going to be so much better next season, there's a real talent in there. We need to squeeze more out of Filippa [Angeldahl], Yui [Hasegawa], Laura [Coombs], Deyna [Castellanos]. Deyna's one of the highest chance creators and chances received in the first half of the season, she gets into those positions and it's honing in on those real individual bits. I'm really excited about that next part of how we make players even better, that's what I've always been about.”
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Answering your questions
Michael Scoates - Can you detail the process of how you go about: Inspiration for article > Notes > Contacting People to Interview > Finished article? And how often does the first draft turn into something completely different from what you first set out to do?
I don’t think any one article is ever the same process. As a freelancer, 99% of them will be down to my own inspiration and what I want to write, then working out if it’s doable. If it’s a big feature, can I speak to all the people I need to? Contacting clubs, individuals, agents etc and then managing to speak to as many people as you can and piecing that together like a jigsaw into an article. An interview will be different, just purely contacting a club or an FA and hoping for the best. The only variables really are games in terms of not knowing how the narrative will evolve depending on how the game goes.
Natalie - When Spurs and Everton finished 5th recently respectively in the last two seasons media has raved. A popular podcast with Fara Williams even suggested that Spurs would break top 3 before United. Now United have broken the top 3 why is no media talking about it?
I find this a bit odd because I feel like we have? I certainly have. When Marc Skinner brought this up I was a bit intrigued and in our media WhatsApp chat we were a bit bemused because we feel we’ve been giving them credit while some fans have still been criticising Skinner etc.
Personally, as you know Nat, I’ve been singing Skinner’s praises all season, so maybe I’ve just not seen stuff elsewhere but I genuinely don’t feel like United haven’t been given credit.
Do you think United will remain in top 3 again next year, because you in the media insinuate we are here due to City transition and Arsenal injuries…
I think every year it resets between those four and every year someone will miss out. 100% City and Arsenal have more to give, so United will have to, and I’m sure through recruitment and evolution they will. Until we’ve seen what all four do over the summer it’s impossible to say, but they still probably have the least solid base to start from, but they’ve shown this year they can get points against their rivals and that’s a big step.
My Name Goes Here - Quick and easy one for you, what's your team of the season made up of only new signings?
Quick and easy?! It certainly wasn’t, but I actually enjoyed looking at this and there were a lot more options than I thought, but I settled on the below…
Janina Leitzig - Eve Perisset, Emma Koivisto, Maya Le Tissier, Danielle Turner, Courtney Nevin - Yui Hasegawa, Kenza Dali - Kirsty Hanson, Rachel Daly, Beth England
Shout outs too to Fuka Nagano, Clare Wheeler and Victoria Pelova, among others.
What you missed
A big interview and a big feature might have been two pieces you missed this week.
I interviewed Madrid CFF star Rachael Kundananji, who ended the Liga F season with 25 goals, about her journey to Spain and this summer’s World Cup where she’ll be looking to impress with Zambia.
Earlier this week, I spent the day at Everton to see how Brian Sorensen has been rebuilding the club, as well as speaking to his players with full behind the scenes access.
Consider a paid subscription to get FULL access to the whole site. Substack is fully dependent on the WFC community, that's how this works, and the more people who pay, the better this can become and hopefully I can continue to provide you, the readers, with genuinely unique and in-depth women's football content. It takes time and effort to put together content on here every week and what’s still to come, and it can’t be done without your support.
You can also read me in FourFourTwo’s latest issue, looking at why English coaches thrive in the NWSL and I spoke to Angel City FC head coach Freya Coombe and North Carolina Courage assistant Victoria Boardman to find out.
Do loans count as signings??
In terms of Team of the Season??
Grey area for me, a signing is someone who has a permanent deal for my money....
Okay, easy-ish then . Got to keep you one your toes ;)