Manchester City spurred on by past experiences says Kennedy ahead of UWCL opener | OneFootball

Manchester City defender Alanna Kennedy says that the team have been spurred on by past experiences in their quest for silverware.

The Cityzens are hoping to end a two-season trophy drought in 2024/2025. Manchester City have four opportunities to win silverware this season with the club competing in the Barclays Women’s Super League, Adobe Women’s FA Cup, Women’s League Cup and UEFA Women’s Champions League.

In the last couple of seasons, Manchester City have failed to qualify for the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage, they’ve suffered a final day Barclays Women’s Suoer League title defeat and have been dealt some painful domestic cup exits. When speaking to the media ahead of Manchester City’s long-awaited UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage return, Kennedy said that the team have been spurred on by the difficult experiences of the last two seasons.

“When you’re at a top club, you want to be playing in the top competitions and fighting for trophies,” Kennedy said. “We want to win all of the competitions that we are in this year and get our hands on some silverware.

“We’ve got off to a good start so far in the Champions League by making the group stage and hopefully, we can continue that.

“I think the past experiences of just falling short have helped us grow and learn and hopefully, this is our season.”

Now in her fourth year at Manchester City, Kennedy may finally get the chance to feature for the club in the UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage. The Cityzens kick-off this season’s group stage with a fixture against European champions FC Barcelona at The Joie Stadium tomorrow night. Kennedy admits that the opportunity to play in the group stage of the competition has been a long time coming.

She said “It was disappointing to be out of the competition early in my first two seasons here and obviously, not even being in the competition last season. That was disappointing but it made us more determined to be there this time around.

“I’m really looking forward to more Champions League football.”

Manchester City will play their three home matches in the group stage at The Joie Stadium rather than over the road at The Etihad Stadium. Kennedy says that the team are more than happy to be playing in familiar surroundings.

She said “I always like to look at things in a positive light. We are comfortable playing at The Joie Stadium and we have the home field advantage. I think we play really well on that pitch.

“Across the road, it’d be a bigger crowd supporting us. The aim is to get more games there in the future but I think we are quite comfortable playing at The Joie Stadium at the moment. We play good football there, we’ve had good results and hopefully, that continues.”

Manchester City’s UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage fixture against FC Barcelona kicks-off at 8pm on Wednesday evening. The game has been declared a sell-out.