After nearly five years in charge, Manchester City have sacked coach Gareth Taylor only five days before their League Cup final against Chelsea. With the WSL title out of the question, is there any saving City’s season?
It felt only a matter of time before Gareth Taylor and Manchester City parted ways, but the timing of his departure – just five days before their League Cup final against Chelsea – caught many by surprise.
This season began with belief that Man City had a great chance to win their second WSL title and their first in nine years. Instead, they’ve performed even worse that last year and fallen further behind Chelsea.
With Emma Hayes leaving Chelsea to take up the USWNT job after five years of dominance in the WSL, it looked like other contenders had their best opportunity in years to catch them up. Little did we know that new coach Sonia Bompastor would elevate the Blues even further, and lead them to the best points tally of any side in WSL history after 16 games (44).
That doesn’t excuse Man City’s WSL form this season, however. Upon dismissing Taylor, the club’s managing director Charlotte O’Neill stated: “Manchester City prides itself on competing at the top of the WSL and on its outstanding record of qualifying for European competition. Unfortunately, results this season have so far not reached this high standard.”
There’s no denying the statement rings true. City’s 32 points from 16 games is eight fewer than at this stage last season (40), and six fewer than in 2022-23 after 16 matches (38). In fact, only in 2021-22 (29) have they won fewer points at this stage of a WSL campaign.
Finishing in the top three and qualifying for the UEFA Women’s Champions League next season isn’t out of reach, however. They trail third-place Arsenal by just a point, although the Gunners have a game in hand on City.
It’s also worth noting that the last team to win 32 points or fewer after 16 games of a WSL season and still finish in the top three were City themselves in 2021-22 (29 points). That said, that season had already seen them begin their turnaround by this point, as they won their final nine WSL games of the campaign.
Although Taylor guided them to the League Cup final after defeating Arsenal in the semi-final just over a month ago, and oversaw their progress in the FA Cup on Sunday with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa, the damage was arguably done last Wednesday night with a 1-1 away draw at ninth-place West Ham United in the league.
It was a game that City dominated, both in terms of possession and quality of chances, but they couldn’t stop West Ham from scoring an injury-time equaliser. It was the fifth game in the last nine that they had dropped points in the WSL, with just 13 collected from 27 available. Before that run began with a 2-0 loss away at Chelsea on 16 November, City were top of the league with an unbeaten start from their opening seven games (W6 D1 L0).
Despite the efforts of Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw – who once again leads the WSL scoring rankings with 12 goals – supported by Mary Fowler (six goals, six assists) and Lauren Hemp (two goals, six assists), Man City began to lose games that mattered against their top-four rivals. That defeat to Chelsea in November was followed by further losses to Manchester United and Arsenal in the new year, while they also suffered a shock defeat at Everton in their final game of 2024.
The deterioration of the club’s relationship with Chloe Kelly escalated around the time of those defeats, too. She eventually moved to Arsenal on loan at the end of the January transfer window, but City lost their leading creative threat from 2023-24 (51 chances created) and even worse, lost her to arguably their biggest rival for European qualification.
However, it’s been mostly in defence where City have had issues. They’ve given up a non-penalty xG per game of 1.07 this season across their 16 games, their worst on record in a WSL campaign (since 2017-18) and up from 0.83 last season.
The season-ending injury to Alex Greenwood in December is one factor behind their defensive troubles this season, while Khiara Keating’s loss of form in goal has been another. Keating led the WSL ranking for goals prevented (8.6 based on Opta’s expected goals on target model) last season, but a drop in form (she’s conceded 2.0 more than expected this season) has seen her lose her number one spot to Ayaka Yamashita. That lack of consistent figure in goal has hindered the City backline.
Despite finishing in the top four in every season – including a gutting second-place finish on goal difference last term – Taylor couldn’t bring City the WSL title they wanted across his four full seasons in charge of the club. Now, they turn back to the man who last brought them WSL success in 2016, Nick Cushing.
Cushing left Man City Women to take over at another club owned by the City Group, New York City FC in men’s Major League Soccer. He was initially employed as assistant coach, but was eventually given the full-time head coach role ahead of the 2023 MLS season. His first campaign in charge saw New York City FC fail to qualify for the post-season play-offs, and a conference semi-final defeat to rivals New York Red Bulls in 2024 was enough to bring his time at the club to an end.
City are still in a strong position to win silverware in 2024-25, but Chelsea are likely to stand in their way in all three cup competitions they remain in.
Saturday’s League Cup final is the first hurdle, before City face the Blues across two legs of their Champions League quarter-final later this month. They then face Man Utd in the semi-final of the FA Cup in April for a chance to play Chelsea or Liverpool in the final.
With or without Taylor, getting through this Chelsea team is going to be exceptionally difficult.
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Gareth Taylor Sacked: Can Man City Salvage Anything From This Season? Opta Analyst.
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