Gareth Taylor has played down the idea that Emma Hayes' departure from Chelsea will open the Women's Super League landscape for a new juggernaut.
City were consigned to a bridesmaid as Chelsea once more were crowned champions of the WSL following City’s 2-1 win over Aston Villa and Chelsea's 6-0 thrashing of Manchester United.
A fourth successive final day WSL decider came down to goal difference in the end. City required at least a three-goal swing and a potential favour from United if they were to usurp the defending champions. But it was Chelsea who raged into an early lead and refused to relent as City toiled to break through a tenacious Villa side. Despite goals from Mary Fowler and Lauren Hemp, it was not enough to usurp Chelsea's superior goal difference.
The victory for Hayes' marks her fifth consecutive league title with the Blues and her seventh under her aegis. But whether her departure will open the doors for City and others to tussle for the top spot, Taylor was not convinced.
“It depends on what the new manager does," Taylor said afterwards.
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"I don’t think it’s always down to the coach being the real factor for why a team is so successful or not. Of course they play a role in that, like we all do. But really it’s down to the players. The players have to be the ones who go over the white line.
"Things may change now but we need to continuously keep pushing. We are stronger than we were last season but we need to kick on next season.”
City were hampered by injury in the final stages of the title race. Losing their only summer signing Jill Roord midway through the campaign was a blow that Taylor managed to navigate, but the loss of the WSL's Golden Boot winner Khadija Shaw with three matches to go transpired to be too formidable. Indeed, Shaw's absence was conspicuous in City's 2-1 loss to Arsenal on the penultimate weekend, and again on the final day as Villa keeper Anna Leat relished an inspired afternoon.
The WSL runners-up have been linked with Vivianne Miedema, who will depart Arsenal in the summer and become a free agent. The WSL's record goalscorer, who scored with her first touch in her final match for Arsenal on Saturday, will be a coup for whichever club manages to procure her talents but certainly City, who rallied 31 shots at Villa's goal with 11 on target but failed to come away with more.
Lauren Hemp looks dejected after losing the title to Chelsea (Photo by Copa/Getty Images)“Firstly I wouldn’t want to talk about players who are still at other clubs and we’ll give the relevant information when it happens," Taylor said when asked about Shaw. "I think that it’s really difficult to have two Bunny Shaws. Some of the other clubs have really top end replacements for our players, unfortunately we don’t at the moment but our forward line is still really good.
"But sometimes we can look at it in many different ways, we just have to keep improving. You look at us from last season, we changed one player. One player out, one player in. We lost that player in January, a world-class player. Which was really difficult, then losing Bunny with three games to go. You look at Arsenal, you look at the game today, Bristol City and you think Bunny is going to score a lot of goals in that game, which could make the difference but these things happen. But we’ll be energised to go again.”
City became the third team in the last four years to fall at the final hurdle against Chelsea, with Arsenal and Manchester United doing so before then. But Taylor believes the narrow margins at play will only serve as the launchpad for City next season.
“It’s tough, we won 18 games out of 22," he says. "It feels really tough on the team because you don’t always get what you deserve. And I felt that we deserved it. We were the most consistent team. Of course we lost some players in key moments and we don’t have the strength in depth that other teams have but that’s what we’re working towards.”
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