‘We want to get back to those levels’ – Taylor hopes Manchester City set standards at Aston Villa | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor is hoping to see his side get back to their best when they travel to Villa Park to take on Aston Villa on Saturday afternoon.

The Cityzens go into the fixture having lost back-to-back matches in the Barclays Women’s Super League. Manchester City have not been at their absolute sharpest in the last couple of league games.

When speaking to the media ahead of the trip to Aston Villa, Taylor reflected on the performance in the reverse fixture. Manchester City performed well in a 2-1 win and Taylor wants to see his side get back to having more control of games.

“They’ve got a new manager in place now but Shaun [Goater] will still take the team,” Taylor said. “It’ll be really good to see him first and foremost and in terms of what we’ve seen, he’s slightly changed things from what Robert [de Pauw] was doing previously.

“If I go back to that game [against Aston Villa at home], I thought we were excellent. The amount of control that we had in that game, we limited Villa to very little; we conceded from one of the few attacks that they had. I thought the team were outstanding that day. Lauren Hemp played a big part and Jill Roord with her goal.

“It was very similar to the Liverpool game at Anfield where sometimes, when you turn those games around, you’re so satisfied with the performance, the levels and the control you have. Of course, we want to try and do that again. We want to get back to those levels and the standards that we set earlier in the season.”

Opponents Aston Villa are four games unbeaten under the leadership of caretaker Shaun Goater. Taylor has not been surprised by The Villans’ improved form under Goater.

He said “I’m not surprised because Shaun cares a lot. First and foremost, he’s a great guy, an old teammate and he’s probably taken a few things with him from us which is really good. You can kind of see some similarities; they play with one deep midfielder now rather than two which is similar to how we do things.

“It’ll be really good to see him. We are both competitive and that’s not changed. It’ll certainly be the same at the weekend where we are both going at it, trying to win the game for our respective teams.”

Taylor says that he will sit down and chat with Goater about the game but the talking is likely to be done post-match.

He said “I think we will speak afterwards out of respect because it’ll be a cagey conversation I can assure you. We have spoken on a few occasions since he’s taken the role on an interim basis. It’ll be radio silence until we see each other.”

Manchester City’s Barclays Women’s Super League fixture at Aston Villa kicks-off at 12pm on Saturday afternoon.