Gareth Taylor says City have no fresh injury concerns ahead of our Barclays Women’s Super League clash away to Tottenham Hotspur.

City picked up our first three points of the new season in our most recent encounter, a 4-0 triumph at the Academy Stadium against Leicester.

That victory kickstarts a busy fixture period for Taylor’s side, with Saturday’s showdown against Tottenham representing the first of three matches in the space of eight days.

Our trip to Brisbane Road comes a little too soon for Alanna Kennedy and Ruby Mace to make their returns to the fold, but the boss insisted that the defensive duo remained on track with their respective recoveries.

Next Fixture

All fixtures

FA WSL

Spurs

BST

Man City
Manchester City

“There’ll be a couple of doubts, but nothing outside of what we spoke of previously,” Taylor explained when asked about the squad in his pre-match press conference.

“Ruby and Alanna are a week further down the line than before and closer [to a return].

“Outside of that [there are] a few knocks, but everyone’s come through unscathed and looking forward to keeping the players healthy.

“That’s going to be important with the games we have, this period is a decent run of fixtures, a three-game week for us which we enjoy but keeping them healthy and ready to play is important.

“At the moment things are looking good.”

With City’s clash at Spurs the first of this weekend’s WSL fixtures, victory would see us move as high as fourth in the table for a few hours at least.

Taylor didn’t go as far as to describe this weekend’s clash as a ‘must win’, but he did point out that the WSL’s shortened fixture format left few chances for slip-ups.

Instead, the boss believes another performance akin to the one that earned us victory against Leicester would give City every chance of picking up the points once again this weekend.

DOWNLOAD THE MAN CITY APP

He said: “They’re all must win when you only have 22 games, the hardest thing to do is win them.

“Everyone is capable of beating everyone on their day, which makes the job more difficult.

“When you lose a few games, it makes the winning of the title difficult. That’ll never change and I’m pretty sure every coach would say the same.

“For us, must win is probably a bit too extreme, it’s important for us not to lose it, we go into games trying to win.

“I always look at performance level, that’s always something that sits well with me if we perform to our levels or not, it usually dictates whether you’re going to be successful.

“Sometimes you’re fortunate enough, but being good in both boxes gives you the best chance to win the game.”