Gareth Taylor expressed his pride and delight at the way City’s players returned to domestic duty in impressive fashion on Saturday, recording a vital 2-1 league win at home to Everton.

At the end of an international break that had seen City players spread across all corners of the globe, City were back in Barclays WSL action with an early kick-off on Saturday afternoon.

Despite the relative lack of preparation time however, the players responded in fine fashion with goals from Khadija Bunny Shaw and player of the match Lauren Hemp proving decisive despite Hannah Bennison’s impressive reply for the Toffees.

It was a 12th successive win for City across all competitions and one that sent the side back to the top of the Barclays WSL table ahead of Chelsea who play on Sunday evening.

And reflecting on what was a solid afternoon’s work, the boss referenced how well all his players had coped with the unique demands of returning from international duty.

“It’s a big thing that. If you look at it we had one training session as a group leading into the game,” the City boss pointed out.

“We had players still in different continents on Wednesday playing games which is really late.

“For them to come back and put their club hats on as quickly as they did it was great.

“I think we would have liked to have managed players a bit more but that was really diff with the scoreline being quite close.

“But super impressed with a lot of stuff and proud of the players and a really important three points.”

Play the video to watch the manager’s interview in full…