Gareth Taylor is relishing the challenge of City’s winter schedule that follows the current international break.

As our stars return from representing their respective nations next week, we will play six times in 28 days before another brief hiatus until January 15.

Up first is a trip to Everton, followed by Sunderland and Liverpool in the Conti Cup either side of a meeting with Brighton at the Academy Stadium.

There’s then the small matter of the Manchester Derby at the Etihad Stadium, ahead of our final Conti Cup group game with Leicester.

The boss was a guest, alongside City’s Laura Coombs, on our Matchday Live broadcast during our Carabao Cup clash with Chelsea - and he’s looking forward to the task at hand.

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Taylor said: “We had a good batch of games in this recent period. We go into another one now before Christmas and we’re looking forward to the challenge.

“We’ve showed some good things. Coming back after the international break and making sure everyone reacclimatises really quickly to what we do is important.

“We don’t have much time, but it’s the same for all teams and I think if we can do that, we’ll continue in the same vein.”

Following the last international break in September, we showed formidable form in all competitions once back in Manchester.

City won all five matches in all competitions, scoring 18 goals and conceding just once.

And Coombs told MDL she is looking to build on the impressive run of results.

“Yeah [we] definitely [want to maintain our momentum],” she said.

“Hopefully everyone comes back fit and healthy from the international break and pick up from where we left off, against Everton next Saturday.

“We only every have one or two sessions as a team normally, so it is a real quick turnaround. But we’re used to it, it happens every month pretty much so we know how it works now and everyone quickly changes their mindset.”