Taylor calls for patience after summer of change at Manchester City Women

Gareth Taylor says he understands the concern of Manchester City fans after a summer of change and has urged them to be patient as his new players get to grips with the league and setup.

“Yeah, I can understand it,” the manager says. “I would ask them to be patient because we’ve really invested in the future with these [new] players. There’s going to naturally be a fair-sized turnover at some point when you look at the nature of the group that left. They had given us really good service and three of the players had retired. With that, we had to be on the front foot with our recruitment and we were.”

Before a 3-2 extra-time defeat by Chelsea in May’s FA Cup final, City had won 13 games in a row in all competitions and lifted the Continental League Cup. That run lifted the pressure on Taylor, who had insisted there was “nothing for me to consider” when asked whether his position was in question after a humiliating 4-0 home defeat by Chelsea last November. That defeat was followed up by a 2-1 cup loss to Manchester United and meant they suffered six defeats and two draws in their first 12 games of the season – which included the team’s exit from Champions League qualifying.

In defence of Taylor and his team, the squad was weakened by injuries, with Ellie Roebuck, Karen Bardsley, Steph Houghton, Chloe Kelly, Lucy Bronze and Esme Morgan among those who had spells out.

If the pressure was lifted by the season’s close, then it is back on before the new campaign, which starts for City at Aston Villa on Sunday. City have lost a significant number of players in the transfer window, including three Euros winners in Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh, who have joined Barcelona, and Georgia Stanway, who has moved to Bayern Munich. Other