We finished second in Group D of this year’s competition and now know we will face one of Olympique Lyonnais, Chelsea or Arsenal in March’s last eight ties. The draw for that stage will be made in February.
After an 8-0 aggregate victory over Paris FC in qualifying and then five wins from six in the group, it’s been a very impressive start to the European campaign for Gareth Taylor‘s team.
Arsenal and Chelsea’s progression alongside ours means this is the first time three sides from the same league have got this far into the competition.
Now we wait until February to find out whether we’ll face one of our fellow Barclays Women’s Super League teams or record eight-time champions Lyon.
Here we’ll take a look at the stats that defined our group stage...
Wins
City enjoyed a 100% record in the competition until the final matchday - winning our five games in the group up to that point.
Our five wins means only Chelsea and Lyon have tasted success more than us in the competition proper so far this season.
With 15 points in total, only Chelsea and Lyon can claim a better haul from their group stages while we collected the same as Arsenal and Barcelona, who pipped us to top spot in our group after their victory on Wednesday evening.
Perhaps the most memorable of our wins came on the opening week, when we beat Barcelona 2-0 at the Joie Stadium.
That was backed up with a 3-2 success at Austrian club St Polten and then a 2-0 home defeat of Swedish side Hammarby.
The reverse against Hammarby was a 2-1 victory before a 2-0 win against St Polten.
Attacking
City’s 11 goals across our six group games meant an average of just under two strikes per match.
That left us ninth in terms of goals scored - making us the least prolific of all the sides that have reached the knockouts.
As you’d expect, Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw was our top scorer with three strikes across our six matches. That’s three off current top scorer Pernille Harder of Bayern Munich.
Aoba Fujino was amongst a host of players to score twice, but she was also our leading assist provider with three - two off Barcelona’s Patri Guijarro.
We were very efficient with our chance conversion, needing just 25 shots on target to score our goals.
Defending
It’s defensively where we excelled throughout most of the group stage, with our six goals conceded only bettered by Barcelona, Lyon and Wolfsburg - with the latter two in the same group.
We kept three clean sheets, which only Lyon and Barcelona could do better than.
Although Ayaka Yamashita and Khiara Keating shared the duties with three matches each, Yamashita claimed all three clean sheets.
However, Yamashita was required to make just seven saves as City dominated the games in which she featured.
Keating made 19 saves in total and came away with +2.2 when it came to post-shot xG - the second best in the whole tournament.
Put in simple terms, that suggests our young England goalkeeper saved 2.2 goals than would reasonably be expected of a goalkeeper at this level.
Possession
We’ve enjoyed 59% possession in our six games so far, completing 2,916 passes in total.
Our leading pass makers have been Alanna Kennedy and Alex Greenwood from their centre-back roles, finding their target with 399 and 361 passes respectively.
Kennedy is also intent on getting the ball forward, helping us get a total of almost 3,000 metres up the pitch with progressive passes.
That’s the fifth best in the tournament, with Lyon’s Wendie Renard leading the way.
Yui Hasegawa‘s progressive passing is crucial to our system too and her 49 passes into the final third are the fifth most across Europe, directing us into dangerous positions on the edge of opponents’ boxes.
As with all City sides, possession is integral to our style of play and making efficient use of it will be crucial no matter who we face in the last eight.
Manchester derby at the Etihad
City and Manchester United will face off at the Etihad Stadium in the Barclays Women’s Super League on Sunday 19 January (18:45 kick-off).
Students can take advantage of a fantastic offer for the derby, which allows you to bring a friend for just £1 on top of your £10 ticket.
As usual, there will also be plenty of pre-match entertainment outside of the action, including a fanzone, Blue Carpet Experience, and an opportunity watch our Premier League match vs Ipswich Town before kick-off.
Show your support for City and help to keep Manchester blue by securing your ticket today!
