Gareth Taylor‘s side have an exciting opening assignment, travelling to Arsenal on Sunday 22 September before we welcome Brighton to the Joie Stadium a week later.
Both of those matches have already been selected for television coverage in the UK.
That trip to Arsenal an important clash, with the second and third placed teams last year meeting in North London.
It will also be a memorable day for our new striker Vivianne Miedema, who joined from the Gunners this summer after seven years at the club.
2024/25 is our 12th successive season in the WSL, having lifted the title in 2016 and finishing as runners-up on eight occasions.
After losing out on the title in 2023/24 on goal difference alone, we’re looking to go one step further in the coming season.
This is the first time City and Arsenal have ever played each other in the first match of a WSL season, but we do have a strong record at this time of year.
With such a crucial game first up, we take a look at our form on opening day up to this point.
Wins
We’ve won six of our previous 11 matches on the opening day of a WSL campaign, starting with the 1-0 victory over Notts County in 2016.
A 4-0 defeat of Yeovil followed in 2017/18 before a run of three successive wins in 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 against Manchester United, Aston Villa and Everton respectively.
Last season saw us claim a 2-0 success at West Ham United thanks to goals from Lauren Hemp and Jill Roord.
We’ve had three draws on the first weekend of a season, including two with Birmingham City and a goalless stalemate against Chelsea in 2018.
Our two curtain raising defeats so far have come against Liverpool in 2014 at the start of our first WSL season and in 2022/23, when we were on the wrong side of a 4-3 thriller with Aston Villa.
Goals
In our 11 games so far, we’ve scored 18 times and been shut out just three times.
We’ve scored at least once in each of our last five games to start a season.
Defensively, we’ve only conceded six times and managed eight clean sheets in total. In fact, we’ve kept a clean sheet in six of our last seven opening day games.
Those 4-0 demolition jobs against Yeovil and Everton in 2017 and 2021 are our biggest wins.
Top scorers
Georgia Stanway’s goal against Yeovil in 2017 and brace in the 2-0 win at Villa in 2020 makes her our leading scorer on opening days.
However, Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw and Laura Coombs are on two goals each.
With Shaw surpassing Stanway’s tally of 67 goals and becoming our record goalscorer last season, this could be another metric that the Jamaican soon overtakes the England midfielder on.
