‘We win, lose and draw together as a team’ – Manchester City boss Taylor reflects on derby loss | OneFootball

Manchester City head coach Gareth Taylor admitted that he was disappointed after his side slipped to a 4-2 defeat to Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium last night.

It was a frustrating evening for The Cityzens as they produced some individual errors which contributed heavily to their first-ever home derby defeat.

When speaking to the media in the post-match press conference, Manchester City boss Taylor admitted that it had been a disappointing night for his side.

“We’re disappointed,” Taylor said. “Obviously, I think between both boxes we were ok, had some good opportunities in the second half, but we had some real problems with our build-up play in the first exchanges.”

Going on to discuss his side’s in-possession work, Taylor expressed his frustration that Manchester City couldn’t execute the actions that they had put into practice during the week in training.

He said “It’s frustrating, really frustrating. We work on these actions, we’ve conceded on the back of it and obviously, to have it two or three times tonight is a difficult one to take. It’s frustrating because we know we can be better. I still feel it was us playing into their hands a bit and needed to be smart.”

It was a game to forget for Manchester City’s 20-year-old keeper Khiara Keating who produced two major blunders that led to Manchester United goals. Taylor refused to put any blame on his goalkeeper.

He said “We win, lose and draw together as a team. It’s hard for her, you feel responsible and like you’ve let the team down but she has been really good for us. She’s a young keeper, so she is going to make mistakes, what you see is the strength of her character.”

After going 3-0 down, Vivianne Miedema and Rebecca Knaak netted before the break to bring the deficit back to one goal. Taylor felt confident that his side would turn it around in the second half.

He said “The half-time message was that we are going to win this game. I definitely felt at that point we could do, particularly with Viv [Miedema] on the pitch. We knew that the reality of her getting a full game in was going to be difficult, but the more we had her on the pitch, we felt we had a real chance.”

Manchester City’s next game is a Subway Women’s League Cup quarter-final tie at Manchester United on Wednesday evening.