Taylor pleased with Manchester City’s ‘commanding performance’ against Tomiris-Turan | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that he was pleased with his side’s commanding performance against Tomiris-Turan in their UEFA Women’s Champions League Round 1 semi-final tie last night.

The Cityzens won 6-0 on neutral territory in Madrid as they secured their place in the Round 1 final on Sunday.

Khadija Shaw netted a brace while Lauren Hemp, Vicky Losada, Deyna Castellanos and Keira Walsh were also on target for Manchester City as they made easy work of the UEFA Women’s Champions League debutants.

When speaking in the post-match press conference, Manchester City boss Taylor hailed his side’s commanding performance.

“I think it was a pretty commanding performance, we dominated the early stages,”. Taylor said. “We showed some good moments and other things to improve on slightly – some of our technical actions, we were a bit inconsistent in our final third and in our final actions but overall in the second half, we opened up well.

“When you make changes like we both did, it can be a little disjointed in the second half but when we made some subs and had a settled final 11, we scored three goals in the last quarter of the game.

“I was pleased with the players, especially where we’ve had to adapt in pre-season like many other clubs have had to.”

It was very much a new-look Manchester City side in Madrid last night with three of the four defenders being handed their debuts. Taylor went on to say that he was pleased with the connections in the back-line and with the growing relationships across the pitch.

He added “It’s the most difficult thing, building the cohesion between new players and new partnerships. Certainly for players who play close to one another on the pitch, you get used to having a familiar face beside you and now it’s a different player. We tried to get the players to synchronise as early as possible, whether that’s on the pitch or off the pitch.

“It is exciting times, we’ve got a good group of players. I believe that we have got a lot of improvement to come, a lot of these players have huge strides to make, but the good thing is that they are very coachable, they want to learn and want to improve.”

Manchester City will face Real Madrid in the UEFA Women’s Champions League Round 1 final on Sunday evening.