There were raised eyebrows in December when Gareth Taylor insisted that Manchester City could win the league after a 1-1 draw with Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium. “We want to win the league. We’re not just looking at the Champions League,” he said. “We’ve put ourselves in a position to win the league. If we win all of our games in the second half of the season, we win the league, it’s as simple as that.”
Six wins and a draw have followed, including this 2-0 defeat of the Women’s Super League title holders Chelsea, a team City had not beaten in 12 prior WSL games. Suddenly Taylor looks to be either a genius, extremely fortunate, or maybe a touch of both.
“To get to a position where we are after losing those two games at the start of the season, it’s remarkable,” Taylor said. “The players need to take credit for that. We’re a newish team. To be in this position now is top.”
The win against Chelsea on Sunday puts City level on points with the league leaders United, with an inferior goal difference. The two Manchester sides are now one point clear of Chelsea and three points clear of Arsenal, albeit having played a game more than both London teams.
The title race is wide open and while Chelsea are still in the driving seat should Emma Hayes’s side win their game in hand, the Londoners were rocked on the road on Sunday.
“We were so sluggish in the first half, our third away game in a week,” Hayes said. “I thought it looked like it. It was the difference between the two teams in the first half.”
City were good, with Lauren Hemp and Chloe Kelly particularly potent on the wings – Hemp’s performance prompting Usain Bolt to ask her for her shirt after the game according to defender Esme Morgan. They made the most of Chelsea’s upheaval at the back with the England defender Millie Bright ruled out following an injury picked up in their 1-0 defeat of Lyon on Wednesday night.
While Hayes’s side were in action against the reigning European champions and eight-time winners in the Champions League, City had a week to prepare for the visit of Chelsea. This is perhaps what gives City the edge in this narrowest of title races. While they would undoubtedly prefer to be in contention in Europe and in the FA Cup, they now have one focus whereas Chelsea and next week’s opponents Arsenal are in the middle of testing Champions League quarter-final ties. Chelsea and Manchester United also have FA Cup semi-finals with which to contend.
It was one-way traffic from the off in front of 5,222 fans at the Academy Stadium, City’s press was relentless, forcing errors from an overworked Chelsea side without the injured Fran Kirby and Pernille Harder.
By the 21st minute the home team had the breakthrough, and it was a goal of Chelsea’s own making. Hayes’s side passed the ball around at the back, searching for a gap to play it out through, but when one did not open up Ann-Katrin Berger booted it away with Kelly lurking. Filippa Angeldahl intercepted the awry pass, played a one-two with Hemp and swept the ball past the goalkeeper, who was at fault.
There was sloppiness at the back for City’s second, too. The visiting team failed to get the ball away from the box following a corner, Kelly whipped it back in from the right, Laura Coombs and Kadeisha Buchanan vied for the header but the ball fell kindly to Hemp. She lashed it into the net before laughing and pointing at the cotton wool in her ear, there to help recovery from an ear infection that kept her out of training on Saturday.
Sensing the game was getting away from Chelsea, Hayes made two substitutions in the 36th minute, with the team’s brightest attacking outlet, Lauren James, hooked off in favour of Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and the defensive midfielder Sophie Ingle replaced by Niamh Charles.
“[Fresh] legs,” Hayes said. “Your mind can want to do a million things but if your legs don’t want to do it, it’s a challenge.”
It was a tactical reworking that had little impact, with Yui Hasegawa pulling the strings in the middle for City and the Chelsea players unable to blink without a light blue shirt bearing down on them.
There was a late opportunity for City to extend the lead further, with Khadija Shaw sending a header looping on to the roof of the net, but they had done enough damage in the first half.
The worry for Hayes is that it has been a long time since Chelsea have looked unable to solve problems on the pitch when struggling, and the manager herself has seemed unable to influence things from the sidelines. A comprehensive 3-1 defeat by Arsenal in the Continental League Cup final with all goals scored in the first half, followed by this defeat by City in the league has shown that perhaps the injuries and the schedule have finally caught up with a side that have not been at its fluid best this season but had been doing enough.
