Flawed Perfection: Manchester City’s WSL Title Campaign
On Sunday, Manchester City looked poised to take the WSL title that little bit further out of Chelsea’s reach. They had the psychological advantage — Chelsea had lost in quite spectacular fashion to Liverpool midweek, at which point Emma Hayes had what appeared to be a complete mental collapse and declared the title race “over”. Even with Chelsea almost sure to secure a victory against Bristol later in the day, another 3 points for City would’ve further assured Hayes’ prediction.
The WSL is — at least for now — a league governed by fine margins. With just 22 games to play, title challengers have to be near perfect. The 23/24 season will be the first time a team has ever won the WSL having lost more than two games. If Chelsea hadn’t slipped up against Liverpool, City’s position following the Arsenal game would appear pretty much hopeless. It’s now looking likely that this year’s title will come down to the final day and goal difference — a set of circumstances very much tipped in Chelsea’s favour after they managed 8 goals against Bristol on Sunday.
City’s loss on Sunday was indicative of some of the warning signs that have appeared in the team this season — tiny cracks papered over by their dominant possession-based play, explosive emergence of exciting young goalkeeper Khiara Keating and the inevitableness of their star striker Bunny Shaw.
So let’s dig into some of those tiny cracks, and how they became veritable chasms on Sunday.
The wider problem — lack of squad depth and rotation
Manchester City’s lack of squad rotation in the league this season is pretty shocking. They have made the least substitutions in the league — just 68. For perspective, Chelsea have made 91 and have played one less game. They have the most complete matches played — 159; and the most unused subs; 117. They also have the lowest minutes per substitution in the league with just 18 minutes.
I should say at this stage I only have access to playing time stats for the WSL and the Champion’s League, so there are obviously some other factors and competitions at play here. However, City were still in 3 competitions at the start of the season, and made it to the quarter finals of both the Conti Cup and the FA Cup, so we’re only talking about a handful of extra games for their closest rivals (barring the Champions League, which I’ll address in a minute).
City’s lack of rotation becomes less surprising when you consider the relative shallowness of their squad. Their stalwart front three includes a collection of some of the best players in the world in their respective positions — Lauren Hemp, Bunny Shaw and Chloe Kelly. Mary Fowler, promising young Matilda’s star and undeniable talent, has barely been trusted with a start this season but has found a good run of form after being given a few starts to seemingly put pressure on an out-of-sorts Chloe Kelly. But with Mary Fowler now a key part of the front three rather than an option off the bench or an alternative to Kelly, attacking subs where the level doesn’t drop start to look a bit thin.
The midfield is a similar story. Holding midfielder Yui Hasegawa is the team’s metronome and has played almost every minute this season. I’m not sure there’s another Hasegawa in the league, let alone at City. The dreaded ACL claimed their most potent goal threat outside of their front three — Jill Roord — in January. Jess Park has been a revelation coming into that position, putting her firmly in the conversation as a starting no. 10 for England. But in having to rely on her as a starter, you again lose another attacking option coming off the bench. They also let another one of their midfield options — Deyna Castellanos — go to Bay FC in January. That left them basically with Coombs and Angeldahl — forcing their hand into tempting Laura Blindkilde Brown away from Villa, who for some bizarre reason had included a release clause in her contract. She’s had some minutes and looked quite promising, scoring against West Ham, but hasn’t really been given the time to establish her impact, Taylor seemingly preferring to rely on Coombs in that position.
Defence is where they arguably have a few more options but where they also don’t rotate, either during or between games. The back four of Ouahabi, Greenwood, Aleixandri and Casparij is rarely strayed away from, save for a few examples, largely because (in my humble opinion) that is their best back 4 by some margin. But you have to ask the question why in games when they’ve dominated going forward, such as their 7–0 win over Spurs, why other players like Esme Morgan or Ruby Mace haven’t been given a chance off the bench.
Then there’s the goalkeeping situation — something which looked particularly fraught a few weeks ago when within the space of a few days, Keating had to withdraw from the England camp and MacIver unfortunately ruptured her ACL during the international break with Scotland. Ellie Roebuck — their first choice keeper last season — has not played a single minute this season, it transpires due to suffering an occipital infarct (a type of stroke). This is a situation we collectively knew nothing about until recently but we can assume City were well aware of. All of which forced City into an emergency loan of Brighton keeper Katie Startup. There’s a fair bit of bad luck in there, but you have to ask with such a precarious situation why another goalkeeping option wasn’t sought in January, particularly knowing what we do now about Roebuck’s absence. You only have to look at what happened to Villa recently — Daphne van Domselaar is out for the season, and when their backup keeper Anna Leat was sent off in the 4th minute in their recent game against Chelsea, Villa then had to turn to their third choice keeper for the best part of two games — to realise these things can happen. Had a similar sequence of events transpired earlier in the season for City, they might have been in a fairly sticky situation.
These squad issues will not be alien to teams lower down the table. But when you consider a club of City’s resources and short-term ambitions, they do leave you scratching your head a bit as to how they’ve been allowed to happen.
The Lauren Hemp problem
A look at Manchester City’s individual playing time stats for this season makes for edifying (and slightly concerning) reading, and none more concerning is that of Lauren Hemp. At the time of writing, Lauren Hemp has played 1,656 minutes in the WSL this season. Caitlin Foord, Arsenal’s most used left winger, has played 1,480 minutes. She’s played more minutes than Arsenal and Brighton’s first choice goalkeepers. I don’t have the stats for how far Hemp has run this season, but I do have the total distance she’s carried the ball, which is the 7th highest in the league on 4,176 yards — the highest for an attacking player. When you factor in tracking back and pressing, you can only begin to imagine the sheer amount of yards that are in Lauren Hemp’s legs at this stage.
It’s obviously difficult to compare her minutes with Chelsea players, just because Chelsea have been in more competitions and for longer this season. But if we think about how much Hemp is relied on in that position, it’s quite safe to assume her league numbers could be extrapolated across to other competitions. Her closest counterpart at Chelsea is probably Johanna Ryting Kaneryd. Even if we factor in Kaneryd’s Champions League playing time, she’s played just 91 more minutes than Hemp, and even if she played all 90 minutes of Chelsea’s two remaining league games (unlikely), and Hemp played all 90 minutes of City’s final game against Villa (more likely) there’d still be a difference of 270 minutes, the equivalent of three games, when Chelsea have played 10 games in the Champions League. Again considering Chelsea’s general approach to squad rotation and City’s comparative lack thereof, we can safely assume this would largely extrapolate across the Conti Cup and FA Cup, which I don’t have stats for.
When you start to consider Manchester City having the Champions League on their plate next season, this becomes a glaringly obvious problem. They’ve managed to secure Lauren Hemp for another 3 years, but a solid option to come in for her and allow for proper rotation in her position has to be a number one priority in the upcoming transfer window.
Where do the goals come from?
Perhaps most concerning going into these last few games of the season is their struggle to find goals outside of Shaw and Hemp. Shaw, now out for the rest of the season, is leading goal scorer in the WSL with 21 goals, and it’s looking unlikely she’ll be overtaken even with missing the last 3 games of the season. She’s scored 38% of City’s goals this season. By contrast, Lauren James, Chelsea’s current top scorer, has scored 13, 21% of Chelsea’s 62 goals. You could argue yes, but Chelsea have been forced to find these outlets because of losing Sam Kerr in January. But — last season Sam Kerr was nowhere near as prolific as Bunny, scoring 12 goals vs Shaw’s 20, and Chelsea won the league and were the top scorers.
Roord was a decent outlet, scoring 6 before she got injured. Park has stepped into that role and performed really well, but hasn’t quite been able to match Roord in terms of productivity — she’s currently on 0.41 goals per 90 vs Roord’s 0.59.
They did find the net 4 times against Bristol — but took until the 60th minute to do so. They looked a bit puzzled during the first half without a set number 9 as the focal point of their attacks, and went in at the break 0–0, despite dominating possession and not being short of chances. Had it been another team other than the basically already-relegated Bristol, you can see that match playing out differently. Mary Fowler scored twice in that game and probably looked their best forward player, but couldn’t raise up that level against Arsenal.
Which leads me to…
What went wrong against Arsenal
In the first half City appeared to be at their free-flowing, possession-based best. Their goal was a beautifully worked team goal with their best football being showcased — intricate passes to create the space and cut through the defence. But it still relied on some technical brilliance from Lauren Hemp to finish it, something which they struggled to replicate with other chances in the game. You have to ask, with a clinical finisher like Bunny in the box, would it have been a different story? And even if Bunny doesn’t have a particularly fruitful day goals wise, she’s still an irreplaceable presence in the final third, drawing defenders and creating that space for the likes of Hemp and Kelly to either finish or pop a cross into her. Either way, they failed to find the net again and take advantage of their dominance in the first half, which proved ultimately to be very costly.
With Arsenal ramping up the pressure in the second half, we have to again look at squad depth. Could Taylor really turn to his bench at this point? Their attacking options were Laura Blindkilde Brown, who’s played just 88 minutes since arriving at City and he seems to see more as a midfielder in the ilk of Coombs or Angeldahl. Then there’s Poppy Pritchard, who hasn’t played a single minute since they picked her up in January. When Arsenal can bring on experienced attacking firepower in the shape of Kim Little, Caitlin Foord, Stina Blackstenius, and even Steph Catley who offers a lot going forward, they start to look a bit silly in comparison.
The substitutions Taylor did make were a bit baffling. The decision to bring Kennedy on was strange — I was confused anyway as to why Caseparij was playing at centre back when she offers a lot going forward — perhaps a City fan can enlighten me. Kennedy has barely played since Greenwood’s spell on the sidelines before Christmas and looked very shaky against Bristol — she was subbed off at half time. I think most people (including myself) expected Steph Houghton to come on given it was her last ever home game. And given what transpired after that change, perhaps a calm and experienced head in defence might have been useful? Neither Arsenal goal came on the break, so it’s not like lack of pace would have been an issue.
Speaking of defence, there were the telltale errors that have plagued City all season, often leading to late goals being conceded. City are one of the best teams in the league defensively, with the least goals conceded and the second most clean sheets after (crucially) their title rivals Chelsea. However, it’s often the nature of the goals they concede which are a bit worrying for a team of their quality.
The first Arsenal goal was farcical — no one deals with the corner properly, it bounces around in the box and falls onto Blackstenius’ outstretched foot. The second one is almost unforgivable. There’s a great ball from Kim Little, which Greenwood and Ouahabi appear to be admiring rather than clocking Blackstenius, who manages (for once) to time her run to stay onside and simply has to guide the ball into the net with her head.
Look, these defensive mistakes happen. Arsenal have some of the most potent attacking talent in the league, and even the seemingly most solid defensive unit can sometimes make errors in big games when mental and physical tiredness sets in. Chelsea famously conceded 3 goals from set pieces against Liverpool last week. But City just weren’t clinical enough at the other end of the pitch to negate what most people could have predicted would be an Arsenal onslaught in the second half.
Looking ahead
Whatever happens with this season’s title race, City have put in a performance this season to be immensely proud of. Their 14 game winning streak equalled Arsenal’s record established in 2022. Bunny Shaw will get the Golden Boot, and Khiara Keating will get the Golden Glove. They’ll have a crack at Champions League football next season and a chance to establish their dominance in a post-Hayes Chelsea era. It seems strange therefore that I’m writing upwards of 2000 words about problems they have.
But I can’t be the only one seeing that there are issues to address. As the WSL opens up and becomes even more competitive, it’ll no longer be about maintaining perfection. It’ll be about picking up results in the games that matter most, and finding a way when your back’s against the wall — a situation in which you need good subs to be able to come off the bench, find a different way to solve a problem and transform a game. Recruitment in the summer and proper rotation will be essential for City if they’re going to be serious contenders in all four competitions they’ll be involved in.
