The visitors fought back from a goal down to salvage a point, thanks to Sam Mewis’ third goal in five games, but crucially dropped more points in the FA Women’s Super League title race.
The result means City have two victories, two draws and one defeat from our opening five games – a disappointing start by our standards – but Taylor asserted that on another day, City would have won comfortably at the Madejski Stadium.
“You win that game 5-1 or 6-1 on another day with the amount of chances we had,” he reflected.
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“It was disappointing but there were elements of the performance I was pleased with.
“They never looked like scoring apart from the minute of play they had when Ellie (Roebuck) made a save and they scored from the resulting corner. It was a bad goal to give away.
“They were trying to slow the game down – even in the first half. We had chances and it was incredible that the ball didn’t go in with the number of goalmouth scrambles…
“On another day, we come away talking about other things.
“I told the players (in the post-match huddle) to remain positive and highlighted the importance that we can’t give anything away in those tight moments.
“The team showed good character, coming back from a goal behind and playing our way.
“When we were calm, we scored a really good goal – the build-up play was good and instead of slashing at the shot like we had been doing, Sam produced a cultured finish.
“We’re disappointed – we wanted to come back with a win.
“I would be concerned if we weren’t creating chances but we are – we just have to be more ruthless and clinical.”
With Caroline Weir left our of the matchday squad, Taylor also allayed fears over an injury, explaining her absence was merely precautionary due to concussion.
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“She had a concussion issue a few days ago,” he revealed. “She took a blow.
“It’s the second time it’s happened this season and we had to take precaution with this one.
“It’s to be seen whether she goes away with Scotland. We couldn’t take the risk.
“She wasn’t feeling great when we saw her at training (on Friday).”
With the majority of his squad heading off on international duty next week, Taylor has little time to prepare the team for the upcoming FA Cup Final– but the City boss insists he will do the best he can to ensure the players are ready come Sunday 1 November.
“It is what it is,” he commented. “We have to get on with it and deal with it.
“It’s the same with Everton in terms of prep time, although we have more players in the international set-up.
“We’ll get three or four days leading up to it with the squad all together – the England game is on the Tuesday and then the Final is the Sunday.
“It’s a pretty hectic schedule after that as well.
“We found our best form a couple of weeks ago but we’ve played five or six games in 14, 15 days.
“We’ll deal with it and be prepared for a big game.”
