Manchester City’s Alex Greenwood: ‘At times this season it felt like it was the world against us’

Alex Greenwood is in the grip of an addiction she never wants to kick. “I’m obsessed with football,” says the Manchester City and England defender. “Often, at home, all Jack and I talk about is football, we watch it and analyse it all the time. People ask what I do to get away from the game but I don’t want to escape it.”

“Jack” is Jack O’Connell, the Sheffield United defender, famed for his ability as an overlapping centre-half, although a serious knee injury dictates that he has spent the past 18 months watching Greenwood perfect her transition from left-back to left-sided centre-half.

“I wouldn’t want to try overlapping though,” jokes the 28-year-old as she prepares for Sunday’s all important Women’s Super League match at Chelsea. “That Sheffield United system was so unique I’m not sure it would be the style for me.”

Gareth Taylor’s City play a different way but they, like Sheffield United at their Premier League peak under Chris Wilder, have recently begun blind-siding opponents once more. After recovering from a dismal start to the season, last year’s WSL runners-up travel to face the defending champions only five points behind Emma Hayes’s second-placed side.

Fifth is still not where City want to be but, as last weekend’s 8-0 FA Cup demolition of Nottingham Forest emphasised, they are renascent. Given that 12 senior players spent pre-season on international duty at the Tokyo Olympics and an injury crisis engulfed the squad, Greenwood never panicked.

“Every time we got a knockback it was tough and frustrating,” says the former Everton, Notts County, Liverpool, Manchester United and Lyon defender. “But, inside the camp, we knew results would improve and we always, absolutely 100%, believed in Gareth. In terms of what