Man City Women manager Gareth Taylor lifts lid on transfers

Manchester City have had a significantly quieter summer than their local rivals United in terms of transfers. The Blues have remained somewhat silent in the lead-up to the 2023/24 season, with only one in and one out.

Jill Roord arrives at the Joie Stadium from Wolfsburg, while Hayley Raso announced her departure immediately after last season’s final game - she heads to Real Madrid. The club have recalled Jess Park and Ruby Mace from their loan spells to join the City ranks this coming season.

Other than a minor shuffle, all has been still in the blue half of Manchester since last summer’s devastating mass exodus. City have appeared to be a closed shop, even throughout the January transfer window.

But quality over quantity, right? City boss Gareth Taylor said: “When you look at how the league played out. It was very close. With 22 games in a season, the nature of the set-up, that means it is always going to be quite tight.

“I think a lot of teams are improving now, we’re trying to improve alongside that but it is always going to be fairly tight. Sometimes at the end of it, you feel like you’re a long way away from it, but everything suggests we were very close. So why take a bomb to the squad and tear it apart, there was no need.

“And we feel this group, particularly with the personalities they have, we feel there is more to be squeezed out of them and that they can squeeze more out of themselves as well.

“At the end of the day, people will think what they think. What we do is we have a plan in place for us that we work to. We have a look at the players who fit our model really well. But it is always evolving.

“For me, it is a different feeling this summer to last summer. Last summer we had a lot of incomings and