Manchester City’s head coach, Gareth Taylor, says his team desperately need the upcoming winter break to bolster their squad after they were comprehensively outplayed by a Barcelona side who reminded everybody why they are the reigning European champions .
Both teams were already sure of their places in the knockout stages but Barcelona, who scored through Clàudia Pina’s low strike, Aitana Bonmatí’s calm one-on-one finish and Alexia Putellas’s thumping effort from the edge of the box, will now avoid the other three group winners in the quarter-finals after their scintillating performance ensured they will top Group D.
The Spanish league leaders, who have won all 13 of their domestic matches this season with a +50 goal difference, played with a great intensity and with such high quality on the ball that they could easily have won the game by a humiliating margin. Thanks largely to a superb performance from the Manchester City goalkeeper Khiara Keating who produced five top-quality saves, and some wasteful finishing, the home side had to settle for a mere 3-0 victory. But that scoreline was still sufficient for them to overhaul their 2-0 defeat in October’s reverse fixture in Manchester and top the group by virtue of their superior head-to-head record.
After what was their final fixture before the winter break, Taylor said he is trying to add reinforcements in January. “We need to break, desperately, to try and get that two or three weeks in to … be able to recover and let’s see where we are in January.
“We’re trying [to make signings in the window]. It’s obviously a difficult market but we could do with some help and some support because the group have worked really hard. We are a young group, we’ve lost some key experienced players.”
In the absence of key first-team regulars through injury including their top goalscorer the Jamaica striker Khadija Shaw, their England winger Lauren Hemp, their captain and reliable centre-back Alex Greenwood and the Netherlands star Vivianne Miedema, this away fixture was always likely to be extremely difficult for Taylor’s side. So it proved as the hosts applied relentless pressure.
This was City’s second successive defeat in all competitions after Sunday’s shock loss in the Women’s Super League away at Everton, in a week which has exposed vulnerabilities in their squad and a relative lack of strength in depth. Particularly compared to rivals such as Barcelona and Chelsea, who have appeared able to field an experienced, world-class starting side even at times when they have had several stars sidelined. City, at present, cannot, and Taylor was forced to name five players aged 20 or under on his depleted bench which only included eight players compared to Barcelona’s 12 substitutes.
The visitors did hit the crossbar through the Netherlands midfielder Jill Roord when the scoreline was still 0-0 but in truth that came from a very rare attack in a game that saw almost constant Barcelona domination. Keating saved superbly from the Spain winger Salma Paralluelo inside four minutes that set the tone for the entire contest, as the 29,000-strong crowd, which was the largest seen across the group stage of this competition so far this season, thoroughly enjoyed their evening’s entertainment.
Keating also produced a world-class reaction save to deny the Netherlands full-back Esmee Brugts, who had earlier spurned a glorious close-range opportunity. Bonmatí also went close at 0-0 with an attempted lob over Keating, which bounced narrowly wide, before Pina eventually broke the deadlock just when the hosts thought they would get to half-time unscathed.
“We don’t want her to be that busy, but we know the talent is there with her,” said Taylor, praising his 20-year-old goalkeeper. “I thought she was very, very good. We looked like we were going to see it out until half-time but the first half was tough.”
City were also without the England winger Chloe Kelly in their match-day squad and Taylor said that was because of symptoms from a concussion injury that it had previously been thought she had recovered from, adding: “[It was] just the aftermath of the concussion that she had. She mentioned some ongoing symptoms that she couldn’t quite shake off.”
