After their 2-1 win over WSL 1 newcomers Reading, VAVEL spoke to Manchester City midfielder Jill Scott about the match as well as City’s double-header against the Belles.
Despite dominating play for most of the match City struggled to carve out obviously openings against a well marshalled Reading side.
“I thought Reading were very well organised, a very tough opponent for us tonight. We maybe didn’t play our best at times but I think that’s the sign of a good team when you don’t play as well as you want to but you still go away with the win," said the Citizen.
Scott wishes City had scored earlier
Scott felt that City could have helped themselves out with an earlier goal to settle them into the game.
“That first goal is always important, it probably would have helped us if it had come a little bit earlier but we dominated possession, we looked comfortable on the ball but maybe it’s just about putting a few more of the chances away.”
Although the midfielder was quick to give credit to the resolute home team, saying “Reading have done really well this season, I’ve certainly been impressed with them. A lot of teams like to bank up when they play against us but I thought they came out and were very tough, certainly banked up in the first-half but really came out in the second and looked to play and press us. So full credit to them for making it a difficult game for us tonight.”
Second-half knock
The game was the second in a run of four matches City are playing in less than two weeks but Scott insists the side are still on top of their game and not beginning to feel the effects yet although the midfielder was substituted in the second-half following a knock.
“We’re full-time now and we’ve got a team of athletes, the girls always make good decisions and make sure they look after themselves and hopefully we’ll still be feeling nice and fresh in the next two games.
I just got a little knock on my ankle, I thought I was going to be able to run it off but it was quite sore and with the games coming up it made sense to come off and see how it is over the next few days.”
With their next two games against Doncaster, Scott is expecting a tougher test than when the sides met earlier this year.
“It will probably be quite different from the first time we played them this season, I think they’ll be a little more organised and I’m sure the next two days of preparation will be focused on Doncaster and how to get that win in the [Continental Tyres] Cup on Sunday.”
League Cup race wide open
With current WSL champions, Chelsea out of the League Cup Scott is unwilling to rule anyone out of the running.
“There’s difficult teams, obviously Arsenal are still in it as well as Liverpool and Birmingham. But I’ve watched Sheffield and obviously the London Bees beat Chelsea; I don’t think there’ll be any easy opponent, especially with a cup game, I think teams pick up 50% more enthusiasm. But first we have to get past the quarter final this weekend.”
With City having shot to the top of the table on the first night of the season they’ve been a hard team to shake from the top spot although Scott doesn’t like to check the standings too often.
“I don’t think any of us like to look at it too much. It’s a bit of a football cliché but we’re a grounded set of girls and we just take it one game at a time. We still know we’ve got tough games coming up and we know there’s a lot of quality players in this league so we can only concentrate on ourselves; as long as we can keep picking points up like this we know we’re heading in the right direction.”
With Abbie McManus out for the rest of the season and Megan Campbell unable to start following a knock training the England centurion is confident the Citizens have more than enough depth in their squad to fight for silverware on all fronts.
“I still think we’ve got some depth, if you look at the bench today Daphne [Corboz], Toni [Duggan] and Keira [Walsh] all came on and we’ve still got Ella Toon on the bench too. We’ve got a fantastic squad and it’s definitely squads that do well in leagues and I think we’ve got a good enough squad to get us through the rest of the season. “