The England international, who stepped in at left-back for Gareth Taylor’s side, was on target in spectacular fashion at St. Andrews to bring City level at 1-1 before the break.
City would go behind once again soon after, but a Lauren Hemp header and dramatic late strike from Ellen White were enough to hand us a deserved 3-2 victory.
White had twice gone close to grabbing the winner earlier on in an entertaining Women’s Super League clash, and Stanway was delighted that our efforts eventually paid off.
She reflected: “It can be one of those games where you have so many chances but none of them go in, but we’ve just got to make sure we make those days count, like today.
“It (was) going to be a scrappy one, one where we want(ed) the final whistle to go, but we got the job done.
“It’s important that we now carry this on into the next two games to end 2021 in the best possible position.
“We just need to carry on, continue the momentum, winning games, playing the football, trusting the process and scoring goals.”
But while Stanway felt City were full value for the three points, she also pointed out that Birmingham hadn’t made life easy throughout the 90 minutes.
“They were definitely on the front foot, the way they pressed us was good and made life difficult for us,” she admitted.
“We were on the back foot and were trying to build our momentum, but we grew (into the game).
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“We definitely dominated the game in possession, and it was just about putting those chances away and luckily we did it in the last minute.”
Although White will rightly take home the plaudits for her decisive contribution, there’s no doubting that Stanway’s strike, which brought City level at 1-1, was the game’s most spectacular goal.
Picking up play around 25 yards from goal, the 22-year-old rifled an unstoppable drive into the top corner past the despairing dive of Birmingham stopper Marie Hourihan with ten minutes of the first half to play.
Nonetheless, Stanway insisted that the timing of the strike was more important than its emphatic nature.
“We were already 1-0 down, I saw the space and just hit it,” she said.
“I knew how important it was for us to get that next goal and every minute counts, I was just trying to get back as quick as we could.”
