‘We are so focused on this’ – Manchester City only thinking about Aston Villa says Taylor | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor says that his side are not looking beyond this afternoon’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie against Aston Villa.

The Cityzens take on The Villans at The Joie Stadium as they aim to continue their quest to end a three-year trophy drought.

Manchester City have a Subway Women’s League Cup final to look forward to next weekend before resuming their UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign. When speaking to the media ahead of this afternoon’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie against Aston Villa, Manchester City boss Taylor said that the focus is very much game-by-game.

“For me, it’s really easy; as a head coach and as a coaching staff, we are so focused on this [game],” Taylor said. “What an opportunity it is for us to be in the hat for the semi-finals. We are really not looking beyond this game.

“For the players, it’s about making sure that they focus on the next game and the next challenge. We are not huge in numbers at the moment but hopefully, we have some good situations going into the final where competition for places is high. The important part is that the players give themselves every opportunity to be in the final by doing the job this weekend.”

Manchester City will come up against Aston Villa’s new head coach Natalia Arroyo for the first time this afternoon. Taylor doesn’t think that there will be too many changes in The Villans’ style of play.

He said “I think there are some similarities from what was happening there previously. Nothing has come completely away from what they do.

“Previously, most of the evidence has shown that they have good individual players, players that perform to a level that can cause teams a lot of problems and they’ve certainly done that over the years. What they need now is probably to have opportunities to play and build their identity [under the new head coach] and become a little more settled with some stability which I always think is the right way.

“I’m really aware of Natalia [Arroyo], I met her previously and shared company with her which was really good for me. I invited her in before she got the head coach role at Villa. Seeing what she has done with her previous clubs in Spain is really impressive. She will have her own take on how she wants to do things and it takes time to do that in terms of getting the profile of the players that she wants and up-skilling the ones that are already at the club.”

Aston Villa have scored in their last seven matches against Manchester City. Despite The Villans’ good attacking record against The Cityzens, Taylor says that the key moments will be when his own side are on the attack.

He said “It’s a tie where winner takes all and progresses to the semi-finals. We need to be completely aware of their threats, making sure that we are focused with and without the ball, particularly with the ball when we are attacking, that’ll be a real moment.

“They’ve pretty much always been set up with the pace that they have at the front end. We are playing in a counter-attacking football game, so we need to make sure that we are really smart with that and controlling counter-attacks when we have the ball around their area for sure.”

Manchester City’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup quarter-final tie against Aston Villa kicks-off at 12.30pm this afternoon. Tickets remain on-sale and can be purchased by clicking here.