Taylor: We’ll come back stronger | OneFootball

Gareth Taylor believes City can only get better from our experience of taking the Barclays FA WSL title to the final day.

Despite Ellen White’s 75th minute strike earning City all three points away to West Ham, Chelsea’s emphatic 5-0 home win over Reading ensured that they would claim top spot.

Our 55-point haul is a record tally for a second-placed side in the competition’s history, and we tasted defeat just once in 22 matches.

Despite the frustrations of coming up short in the race for the title, Taylor believes we will come back even stronger than before in the new season.

“The margin for error is very tight. To lose the title by a couple of points and one defeat, we’d been on a tremendous run as well,” the City boss reflected after our 1-0 win over West Ham.

“We just need more time, we need more time and we’ve seen real improvement, especially in the way we play.

“We’ve run a very good team very close by playing our way and by playing with good exciting football, with pace, scoring goals.

"It’s just constant improvements, even if we were successful and won the league this season we’d still be looking to improve, we’re always looking to get better.

“We’ve done some really good things this season and made some really significant steps.”

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Alongside taking the WSL title race to the final day, we can look back with pride on what has been a thoroughly entertaining campaign.

In Europe, City reached the Champions League quarter-finals before bowing out to Barcelona on aggregate, despite a memorable 2-1 home victory in the second leg.

Furthermore, a 3-1 triumph over Everton in November’s curtailed Women’s FA Cup final saw Taylor pick up his first piece of silverware inside three months of his tenure in the hotseat.

City are also still in contention to retain the trophy this season, locking horns with West Ham once again for a spot in the last eight next Sunday.

Looking back on the season as a whole, Taylor admits that he is extremely proud with what he and his team have achieved under difficult circumstances.

He declared: “It’s been really tough and all the players in the WSL and every professional footballer from any gender deserve tremendous credit.

“Although we’re fortunate in that we can kind of operate normally in our job it’s been so difficult.

“Winning a trophy is something I’m really proud of and we got to the quarter-final of the Champions League, we want to improve on that for sure.

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“I’m new to this, teams around us have done this for longer with different coaches at the helm for a while.

"I’m excited about it and we can only go from strength to strength.”

While Taylor is frustrated that he was not able to add the WSL title to our trophy cabinet, he was quick to congratulate this season’s champions, Chelsea.

Under Emma Hayes’ watchful eye, the Londoners pipped us to the post by two points, and are still on course for an unprecedented quadruple.

The City boss hopes we can get the better of Chelsea next year, but highlighted their consistency and ability to perform under pressure as crucial factors behind their success.

“Chelsea have had a very good season. To have a team chasing you all the way like we’ve done isn't easy. Congratulations to them,” he added respectfully.

“Emma’s (Hayes) been there for a long time now, had her feet under the table for a while and they’ve grown and improved.

“An eye-opener for me was the community shield, I actually thought ‘wow they’re a couple of transfer windows ahead of us’.

“So for us to do what we’ve done shows how well we’ve done but also how much we can improve.”