Taylor delighted with City’s fighting spirit | OneFootball

Gareth Taylor praised his players’ attitude and determination after City rounded off a busy week with a 4-2 win over Aston Villa in the Barclays Women’s Super League.

The Blues’ third game in six days, a Vivianne Miedema brace and further strikes from Mary Fowler and Jess Park saw us come away from Villa Park with the victory.

A depleted City side were boosted by the returns of Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw and Naomi Layzell to the substitutes’ bench, and built on Wednesday night’s 2-1 win over Manchester United in the League Cup with another gutsy display.

Taylor didn’t shy away from admitting it’s been a difficult period for his side but felt our response to that adversity deserved recognition.

“It's been a really tough period for us going from the Christmas break,” he reflected.

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“We’ve spoken previously about players missing and having three games in six days, we’ve gone from not a lot to a lot.

“It’s a quick turnaround, particularly playing on Saturday so I have to give the players credit for that.

“Particularly Wednesday night, today and like I said previously some performance parts of the derby last Sunday were very good. Great credit to the players.

“We had to put up with a couple of setbacks today at the start of the game and second half but showed our fighting spirit and quality.

“I’m really pleased and obviously we managed to get a few more players onto the pitch at the end which will help us take that next step.”

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One unfortunate setback on an otherwise positive afternoon for City was Laura Coombs being forced off in the warm-up ahead of kick-off.

The midfielder was set to start against Villa after an impressive goalscoring display against Manchester United in midweek but had to be replaced by Jess Park.

Taylor wasn’t overly concerned by the extent of the injury, but felt Park did well to step in at short notice.

On Coombs, he added: “Unfortunately, we had to take her off on Wednesday for a thigh issue.

“She trained yesterday and was okay but felt it again in the warmup which was a shame.

“She did really well on Wednesday but we unfortunately, with our substitutes today, unfortunately many were on limited game time but thankfully Jess wasn’t, so she stepped in and did really well.”