‘There was some fabulous play’ – Taylor reacts to Manchester City’s victory over West Ham | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor said that he was pleased with the quality of football played by his side during their 5-0 victory over West Ham United at The Joie Stadium this afternoon.

The Cityzens raced into a two-goal lead inside three minutes thanks to goals from Leila Ouahabi and Khadija Shaw. Shaw added another goal later in the first half before Laura Blindkilde Brown and Jess Park found the back of the net in the second half.

When speaking in the post-match press conference, Taylor admitted that he was pleased with how his side played for the majority of the game.

“It was a brilliant start, two fabulous goals within three minutes and we managed to score a third one,” Taylor said. “We started the game really well.

“We played through their pressure quite a bit but we struggled with that at the start of the second half. We had to adjust a few things with Bunny coming off the pitch. We were a bit sloppy and a bit slow but most of the time, I thought we played with real bravery, played through the pressure, arrived in the final third numerous times, scored another couple of good goals, although our goal lived a charmed life at times, our clean sheet especially.

“There was some fabulous play today, some top performances, some really good goals. It was great for Laura [Blindkilde Brown] to get her first one and Leila [Ouahabi] her first goal too. We actually talked about that goal before the game, we had a feeling that we would get her into that position to be able to score.”

After putting on a dazzling display so early in the game, Manchester City’s slow start to the second half maybe came as a slight surprise. Taylor highlighted how difficult it can be regaining momentum after setting such a high standard in the first 45 minutes.

He said “Maybe we felt it a little bit at the start of the second half. It felt that we were a little bit flat and that we were in a situation where we had secured the game with that third goal.

“It’s so difficult when you have the break at half-time to be expecting the team to catch fire straight away again. It took us a little while to get going but we managed to score another two really good goals, could’ve had some more; Mackenzie [Arnold] made a couple of good saves for them, Jessie [Park] was unlucky with her second one but the way that she powered through for the first one was tremendous. It’s difficult, you can’t expect the situation to always happen.

“We spoke about attacking the game at pace early on as quickly as we possibly could but we never really thought that we’d probably be two or three up in that situation. You might attack the game, start the game really well and just not quite find that key to unlock the door.”

Manchester City return to action next Sunday when they travel to Ashton Gate to face Bristol City.