Manchester City targeting improved start to the season says Taylor | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that his side are targeting an improved start to the season as they look to launch a renewed bid for the Barclays Women’s Super League title.

The Cityzens lost back-to-back games at the start of last season and they ended up missing out on qualification for the UEFA Women’s Champions League, finishing the campaign in fourth place.

When speaking in a Manchester City press conference, Taylor said that improving the club’s start is important, although the season is very much a marathon and not a sprint.

“Of course, you want a good start but there are no easy games,” Taylor said. “We started with two away games last season due to one of the games being cancelled.

“If you look at Chelsea over the last three seasons, when they won the league, they lost the first game on every occasion. It’s not about where you start, it is about where you finish and we’ve always had strong finishes, certainly in my time here.

“We would like to improve on our start for sure. It’s not an overly long campaign with just 22 games but hopefully, with the continuity of the squad that we have, all of the signs are there for us to try and make a good start.”

A minimum of 56 points has been needed to win the title over the last three seasons while Chelsea won the league with 58 points in 2022/2023. Taylor went on to say that points targets are hard to predict and that focusing on performing at both ends of the pitch will help.

He said “I don’t see that 55 or 56-point minimum changing and there’s no guarantees in that. Second place was 56 points last season.

“The levels are improving for sure. Within that, when the levels do improve in other teams and they take points off one another, the finishing total is not as high because teams drop points more than they’ve ever done previously.

“It is a difficult one to gauge but for us, it is more about both ends of the box. We know that we arrive in those situations many times and we’ve got quality players at the top end of the pitch. If we can keep things really clean at the other end, then that gives us more of an opportunity to get those points to be up there.

“It’s exciting because the levels are improving, there are new managers coming into it and there have been some high-profile signings, so I think there are some exciting ingredients for the new season.”

Manchester City kick-off the new Barclays Women’s Super League season with a fixture at West Ham United on Sunday.