The FAWSL returned after a brief interruption and one of the more highly anticipated games of the weekend was Manchester City Women vs Tottenham Hotspur Women. The pre-game talk was centred around Spurs’ new superstar signing Alex Morgan, however, the American striker is still short of match fitness with the City game coming too soon. However, there’s been a sense of optimism behind Spurs this season with their new signings in the hope they can kick on to a higher placed finish. City come in on the back off a timid start to the season including a win and draw to Brighton & Hove Albion Women. The outcome of today’s game saw Manchester City thrash Spurs 4-1 in what ended in a comfortable victory for the Citizens.
This tactical analysis will look to detail the tactics behind Graham Taylor’s emphatic win and the reasons why Tottenham Hotspur Women failed to score.
Lineups
The lineups threw a couple of surprises with Lucy Bronze on the bench for the hosts with the impressive teenager Esme Morgan taking her place at right-back. Georgia Stanway, Jill Scott, and Rose Lavelle joined Bronze in a very strong bench. Lavelle’s inclusion was a welcome sight for City fans as they were able to get a first glimpse at their summer signing from Washington Spirit. Sam Mewis has made a bright start to her City career and made up the midfield alongside Caroline Weir and Keira Walsh.
Spurs made three changes with Siri Worm, Gemma Davison, and Anna Filbey were given starts ahead of Ashleigh Neville, Angela Addison, and Lucia Leon.
Manchester City’s build-up vs Tottenham Hotspur’s press
Part of Manchester City’s dominant win was thanks to their build-up play and midfield shape which led to their effective transitions into the forwards. While we’ll explore their midfield transitions later in this analysis, their build-up was important to the way they were able to achieve this. Spurs needed to stop their build-up play through their forwards by applying pressure on their central defenders. The front two worked hard and were at times successful in the first 25 minutes. Both Dean and Kit Graham both looked to put both centre-backs on the back foot with help from their two wide players to pressurise the full-backs.
Manchester City’s two centre-backs are both very good ballplayers, in particularly, Houghton who is their primary ballplayer from defence would often look to find the more advanced midfielders between the lines to not allow Spurs to consolidate by passing to Walsh. Spurs looked to press Houghton more than Bonner to stop the Manchester City captain from having free reign to pass forward which meant that Walsh was the only option.
