After losing the FAWSL title to Chelsea Women based on expected points after the FA decided not to continue the season, Manchester City Women were expected to head into the summer for a fresh start. Not only did they lose the title, Tessa Wulleart and Pauline Bremer both decided to leave the club after their contracts expired. A critical summer ahead, the recruitment under new manager Gareth Taylor would be imperative for City to maintain and challenge Chelsea for the title again next season.
With rumours of a triple swoop of Lucy Bronze, Alex Greenwood, and Chloe Kelly shows focus and a willingness to go all in this summer. Kelly, in particular, is a smart, shrewd signing as she was one of the few top players playing outside of the top three clubs. This scout report will examine Kelly’s attributes and how she can fit into Manchester City’s squad.
Profile
Chloe Kelly is a young, 22-year-old winger who can also play as a centre-forward. Having started her career at Arsenal, she moved to Everton in 2016, on loan for two seasons before making a permanent move in 2018. The winger is also a capped England international having made four senior appearances so far. Naturally, a winger, the traits associated with Kelly is her pace, dribbling, and shooting ability. Kelly is more of an inside-forward that prefers to cut inside off the left-hand side to dribble into space before finding a shooting opportunity.
In possession, Kelly knows how to find her way out of tight spaces and progress the ball forward. Alternatively, her off the ball intelligence is another bright aspect of her play. The winger is able to find space to run into which makes her lethal in front of goal. This has been a notable change in her game that is reflected in the nine goals she’s scored this season compared to her solitary strike in the 2018-19 season. Through tactical analysis, we will now understand these traits in a little more detail before we investigate her role at Manchester City Women.
In possession
Kelly’s game revolves around her on the ball work with her dribbling her main strength. Playing as a left-sided winger, Kelly likes to cut inside to either shoot or find another teammate. Everton heavily relied on Kelly’s dribbling ability to help them find ways through opposition defences and be a source of goals for the side. Her nine goals this season has led to a 6th place finish after a disappointing 10th place finish in the previous season.
Supported by her heat map, we can see Kelly majorly residing on the left-hand side coming inside and rarely going down the flank, allowing the full-back to overload. Everton were able to find an alternate route of attacking if Kelly was blocked with the full-backs going forward. Upon reaching the final third and specifically zone 14, Kelly will look to take on her man and try and find a shooting opportunity.
Even if the chance is slightly further out, Kelly isn’t afraid to take a shot. This can be reflected in her 3.71 shots per 90 minutes with an impressive 34% accuracy rate. Trying to bypass opposition teams whose tactics revolve around stopping Kelly is tough but the winger has great skill on the ball to manoeuvre through.
