City welcome the Black Cats to the Academy Stadium on Sunday 27 November, with kick-off scheduled for 14:00 (UK) and the match available to watch live on CITY+ and Recast.
We come into our latest Group B clash with sights set on a seventh win in succession, before attentions turn to clashes against Brighton, Liverpool and an Etihad derby against Manchester United in the space of seven days.
And while Taylor insists the players’ focus won’t divert beyond the next game, he is hopeful that a positive result and performance this weekend will act as a springboard leading up to Christmas.
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“There’s nothing better for a group of players than winning games and being a part of things,” he explained ahead of Sunderland’s visit.
“We have a good opportunity to do that [this weekend] but won’t get ahead of ourselves too soon.
“We’ve isolated key blocks of games and this one sits in the middle of a three-game block.
“We just need to keep the focus on this one, not get ahead to Brighton.
“Once we’ve got that done, we’ve got a good a nice week leading to a two or three game week starting with Brighton.”
City began our defence of this season’s competition with a 6-0 triumph at home to Women’s Championship side Blackburn Rovers in October.
Taylor used the fixture as an opportunity to rotate the squad, handing out five senior debuts in the process.
Asked whether it would be a similar scenario against Sunderland, the boss is confident that the impressive recent performance level will be maintained, regardless of who steps over the white line.
He said: “[The game against Blackburn] was a good opportunity for players to get minutes under their belt and to help some of the players gain a rest.
“This situation is different, we don’t play for two weeks in the WSL, so we need to make sure we give the players what they need so everyone’s prepared for the next round of games we have.
“There’s a few knocks here and there so we just need to manage the load accordingly for the players and try and keep everyone as healthy as we possibly can.
“At Everton at the weekend, we didn’t have Hayley [Raso] who we thought we may have as well as Vicky [Losada] and Alanna [Kennedy], but we managed to get Ruby Mace back.
“It’s always a bit of toing and froing where you might get one player back but lose one.
“But the players have been good in that respect and the performances have been at an acceptable level.
“Regardless of changes in game we’ve shown there’s no drop in performance which is really important.”
BARCLAYS WSL ETIHAD DERBY: GET YOUR TICKETS
CITY V UNITED: ETIHAD DERBY
City welcome Manchester United to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday 11 December.
Kick-off is scheduled for 12:30 (UK), with tickets selling fast for our third-ever women’s match at the Etihad.
We hosted Everton there back in May 2014, before welcoming our local rivals in September 2019, when Caroline Weir’s wonder strike saw us run out 1-0 winners in front of what was then a WSL record crowd, and what remains a club record of 31, 213 fans.
With over 30,000 tickets already sold, it promises to be another historic occasion.
You can secure your tickets online by visiting: www.mancity.com/tickets/womens or by calling: +44 (0)161 444 1894.
