‘It’s a big game’ – Taylor looks ahead to Manchester City’s meeting with Aston Villa | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that the fixture against Aston Villa is one of two big games for his side ahead of the Christmas break.

The Cityzens face The Villans in their latest Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at The Joie Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Manchester City are playing catch up in the title race and head coach Taylor believes that upcoming fixtures against Aston Villa on Saturday and Everton next weekend are huge for the club.

“It’s a big game,” Taylor said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “These are two big games that we have before the break. We’ve put ourselves in a decent position, so these two games are really crucial.

“We’ve suffered in the past against this team and we know how dangerous they can be. They’re suffering a little bit themselves this season in some of their results but I think their performances have been pretty good. They still carry that threat and that danger that we saw last season and I don’t see that changing at all this year.”

Since falling to a shock 1-0 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion almost a month ago, Manchester City have taken an impressive three points from an Old Trafford Manchester derby while they were 7-0 winners against Tottenham Hotspur at The Joie Stadium last time out. Taylor said that the challenge is for his side to replicate the recent performances in their upcoming games.

He said “There were some real positives. We’ve had two decent results in the WSL; going to Old Trafford in that type of game and that type of pressure was amazing and to back it up the following week with the type of performance that we gave. We’ve been talking for a long time about the team going and recording that type of scoreline and being really emphatic with the final action that we make.

“Once we got that first goal, we were really relentless in what we were trying to achieve and every action that we made after that was to try and score a goal. There were a lot of good things that allowed us to do that, the players from the back to the front, the substitutes, there were a lot of strong contributions.

“Trying to recreate it is the hardest thing, it’s not easy, but the only thing that is stopping that is us. We always give respect to the opposition and we know that Villa have some decent individual players that can hurt you but we really feel that if we bring the right mentality, attitude and quality, we will be a real match for anyone.”

Manchester City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture against Aston Villa kicks-off at 12pm on Saturday afternoon. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.