Women's Super League Preview: Can Manchester City Recover From Summer Exodus?

Manchester City and Liverpool have differing ambitions this season...
07:00, 08 Sep 2022

We are edging ever closer to the start of the Women’s Super League season and our previews continue. Today, we take a look at the north-west at two clubs with big ambitions this campaign, Liverpool and Manchester City. 

Liverpool

Manager: Matt Beard

Key players: Shanice van de Sanden, Niamh Fahey

Last season’s finish: 1st in Championship

Liverpool are back. It had been five years of decline for the Merseyside club that saw them slip from 6th place in the WSL to the Championship but at their second attempt, they won the division to earn their spot back amongst the elite. 

Relegation seemed to spark the club into action to improve things and now with Matt Beard at the helm, they look to have all the right systems in place to establish themselves in the WSL. The manager only joined last summer but led the side to the league title by a whopping 11 points, a huge total for such a historically close division. 

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But the last few years have given themselves a fighting chance of success. The club has begun to take their women’s team seriously and the connection has started to build, culminating in captain Niamh Fahey imitating Jordan Henderson’s shuffle for the Championship trophy lift. Now, the challenge of the top flight awaits, and the first target has to be to avoid relegation, but it feels as if Beard has his sights set on slightly more than that. 

It’s been an exciting summer. Gilly Flaherty is a smart piece of recruitment having been captain at West Ham during Taylor's tenure and she brings a decade worth of experience to this exciting Liverpool side. Also arriving are Scottish keeper Eartha Cummings from Charlton and Finnish international Emma Koivisto from Brighton, who strengthen a side that should be able to cope with the rigours of the WSL.

Another familiar face Shanice van de Sanden has returned to the club which is by far the most exciting piece of business, potentially in the whole WSL. She’s back at the club having won three Champions League titles with Wolfsburg and could set the league alight with her pace and direct running, but has something to prove having been left out of the Netherlands' Euro 2022 squad. 

Aside from that, it seems as though Beard is happy to trust the majority of the players that took the Championship by storm last term. They’ve thumped West Ham in pre-season and a good start will be crucial to their survival hopes. There’s no reason why they can’t smash those cautious expectations as well as putting on a show at Anfield  for the Merseyside Derby.

Manchester City

Manager: Gareth Taylor

Key players: Steph Houghton, Lauren Hemp, Chloe Kelly

Last season’s finish: 3rd 

The expectation was so high at Manchester City this time last year, and yet they underwhelmed. This time around, with an exit list longer than my Greggs' receipt, it looks like it could be an even tougher season for manager Gareth Taylor. The boss still harbours ambitions of winning the league title, but that feels misplaced when you consider the sheer amount of upheaval at the club this summer.  

Let’s start with the loss of the most expensive female footballer of all time. Kiera Walsh is set to join Barcelona and will leave a gaping hole in the heart of City’s midfield. Her energy and ability to control again was so key for club and country and now Taylor will have to find some way of replacing those lost talents. She will join up with former City teammate Lucy Bronze in the Spanish City while Caroline Weir became the third player to leave Manchester for Spain as she joined Real Madrid. 

Then you have Georgia Stanway who left for Bayern Munich, while the English trio of Ellen White, Jill Scott and Karen Bardsley have all called time on their playing careers, with the former two ending on a high after England’s Euro 2022 triumph. Taylor may need some name tags for the first day of school for Steph Houghton and co, and he will be relying on his captain to get through an entire season unscathed, after an achilles injury saw her miss the majority of last season.  

England stars Lauren Hemp and Chloe Kelly remain and will be key figures once again while number one Ellie Roebuck should help results having missed half of the last campaign through injury. Now, Taylor’s summer recruitment drive will be under major scrutiny to replace those departed names. 

Atletico Madrid forward Deyna Castellanos, Spanish defenders Leila Ouahabi and Laia Aleixandri and Australian international Mary Fowler have all already been brought in. Fowler is by far the most exciting of the lot, with her attacking talents at 19 years of age well worth keeping a close eye on. 

Man City won’t be happy to leave things there either after Walsh’s departure. They will likely need to do more business in the window to overhaul Arsenal and Chelsea but they could find themselves even further down the pecking order if things go wrong. This was destined to be a summer of transition after the retirements, but now Walsh and Bronze have left, could it teeter over into disaster? There’s a whole lot of question marks about this new-look Man City side. 

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