Women's Football Thread 2024/2025

[remember arthur mann]

Love this. Positive small steps

Sounds about right. Bring Steph in and take all the glory, get him fooked off.

 

[freshie]

That is a horrendous injury list

 

[cleavers]

That is a horrendous injury list

Yes horrendous, what's up with Yamashita, I did ask in the match thread earlier.

 

[Lee the Blue]

Granted the injury list is laughably bad, but City will now miss CL qualification for the 2nd time in the last 3 seasons. Over a season thats just not acceptable for a club with our resources. This will also be the third straight year we will have gone without winning a trophy as well, unless we pull the FA Cup out of the fire somehow - forget the CL as Barcelona are streets ahead of the rest and will win that.

Yes the injuries are a factor this year but our Womens Team has woefully underperformed for too long now and needs a huge rethink and new commitment after this season. In short and very sadly, in recent times we are currently just making the numbers up.

 

[Mr HJ]

Granted the injury list is laughably bad, but City will now miss CL qualification for the 2nd time in the last 3 seasons. Over a season thats just not acceptable for a club with our resources. This will also be the third straight year we will have gone without winning a trophy as well, unless we pull the FA Cup out of the fire somehow - forget the CL as Barcelona are streets ahead of the rest and will win that.

Yes the injuries are a factor this year but our Womens Team has woefully underperformed for too long now and needs a huge rethink and new commitment after this season. In short and very sadly, in recent times we are currently just making the numbers up.

Agree with this - I really think it shows how poor it was from the club to stick with Taylor for so long. The list of players we've had and lost is impressive and sad - all he did was alienate some of the best ones and try to coach any flair out of the regular choices with negative tactics.

I am quite impressed with Theresa so far as she didn't mess about and made the change as quickly as she could. You can see already several of the team are improving and with maybe a couple of astute changes in the summer and a new, progressive manager in place (If Cushing wants to go to a mens team) the squad will finally reach it's potential.

There will still be some big calls to make as players like Mary, Jill and Bunny enter the final year of their contracts. Biggest need for me is a top left back and a quality midfielder to help Yui. I've no idea how good Oyama will be but she hasn't been given a look in so far but maybe next year will be different. One thing for sure when the injuries clear up we will have a top forward line but I struggle to see how they can give everyone game time if we miss out on CL football. We really need to win every one of the remaining WSL games to have any chance of CL and that may still not be enough.

In short Taylor was a disaster and to extend his contract after blowing the league was a wasteful decision from Nils.

 

[Laertes]

The club have thrown the kitchen sink at the womens team

Might want to back that one up a bit mate! Plenty of questions raised on that issue over the last few years.

What if next season every mens ST holder is given 2 freebies for one WSL game of their choosing, and an optional guest ticket for say £10. Would www.mancityw.com ie a dedicated OS help to generate more interest and ticket sales. Should the club go all out for a super star on a one year mega deal ?. How about freebie tickets for a couple of schools per game. Could some of the men's squad always turn up at the Joie and support the womens team. Pre kick off song, If they don't want to adopt Blue Moon how about a new womens anthem to give them a unique identity. That can be icky if it's a naff song so maybe go for a new recording of Blue Moon. The new WTC looks like an awesome investment and should help to develop of our own talent as well attract the best players.

More seriously, I'd say these are the sort of things they've focused on for the last x number of years and have left things in this state.

The club have spent years marketing the Women's team at kids and young families, pushed freebies, offers, and low prices, and left us with the sort of atmosphere we had yesterday (and in the derby) where most of the crowd are at the game for a day out, but are paying such little attention to the match happening in front of them that there's no real atmosphere or even feelings of tension. It's not going to get better by doubling down on that. They need to be doing more to get people caring about the actual results and performances, not just buying a ticket, that's where Arsenal have really nailed it over the years.

You can go too far with tribalism etc, but we need more of that with the Women's team imo, not less.

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

Might want to back that one up a bit mate! Plenty of questions raised on that issue over the last few years.


More seriously, I'd say these are the sort of things they've focused on for the last x number of years and have left things in this state.

The club have spent years marketing the Women's team at kids and young families, pushed freebies, offers, and low prices, and left us with the sort of atmosphere we had yesterday (and in the derby) where most of the crowd are at the game for a day out, but are paying such little attention to the match happening in front of them that there's no real atmosphere or even feelings of tension. It's not going to get better by doubling down on that. They need to be doing more to get people caring about the actual results and performances, not just buying a ticket, that's where Arsenal have really nailed it over the years.

You can go too far with tribalism etc, but we need more of that with the Women's team imo, not less.

You are more informed than myself. I just think the '7K test' (ie sell out the Joie) is such a clear cut indicator the womens team are failing spectacularly to pass. No doubt AFCs data on attendees at womens games is confidential, but I would love to know what % of 60K crowds at the Emirates also attend mens games. It may have to be a long term generational solution. A successful winning team would be wonderful but I feel there is something deeper, some cultural reasons stiffling the growth in the Joie attendances. Perversely the increase in TV coverage may have arrived a bit too soon in the growth of the womens game, ie blocking curiosity about the womens game. The only other thing that may help would be a solid core of 6/7 home grown players who make into a successful first team, that could give the crowds a step increase. Anyway I hope they win on Thursday and go on to become euro champions, if only Hemp, Shaw, Greenwood etc were available...

 

[LeonardoDaVnci]

Might want to back that one up a bit mate! Plenty of questions raised on that issue over the last few years.


More seriously, I'd say these are the sort of things they've focused on for the last x number of years and have left things in this state.

The club have spent years marketing the Women's team at kids and young families, pushed freebies, offers, and low prices, and left us with the sort of atmosphere we had yesterday (and in the derby) where most of the crowd are at the game for a day out, but are paying such little attention to the match happening in front of them that there's no real atmosphere or even feelings of tension. It's not going to get better by doubling down on that. They need to be doing more to get people caring about the actual results and performances, not just buying a ticket, that's where Arsenal have really nailed it over the years.

You can go too far with tribalism etc, but we need more of that with the Women's team imo, not less.

You are far more informed than myself. I just think the '7K test' (ie sell out the Joie) is such a clear cut indicator the womens team are failing spectacularly to pass. No doubt AFCs data on attendees at womens games is confidential, but I would love to know what % of 60K crowds at the Emirates also attend mens games. It may have to be a long term generational solution. A successful winning team would be wonderful but I feel there is something deeper, some cultural reasons stiffling the growth in the Joie attendances. Perversely the increase in TV coverage may have arrived a bit too soon in the growth of the womens game, ie blocking curiosity. The only other thing that may help would be a solid core of 6/7 home grown players who make into a successful first team, that could give the crowds a step increase. Anyway I hope they win on Thursday and become euro champions, if only Hemp, Shaw, Greenwood etc were available...

 

[Laertes]

You are more informed than myself. I just think the '7K test' (ie sell out the Joie) is such a clear cut indicator the womens team are failing spectacularly to pass. No doubt AFCs data on attendees at womens games is confidential, but I would love to know what % of 60K crowds at the Emirates also attend mens games. It may have to be a long term generational solution. A successful winning team would be wonderful but I feel there is something deeper, some cultural reasons stiffling the growth in the Joie attendances. Perversely the increase in TV coverage may have arrived a bit too soon in the growth of the womens game, ie blocking curiosity about the womens game. The only other thing that may help would be a solid core of 6/7 home grown players who make into a successful first team, that could give the crowds a step increase. Anyway I hope they win on Thursday and go on to become euro champions, if only Hemp, Shaw, Greenwood etc were available...

To be clear, don't mean to disagree with your point about them falling short or anything like that - you're absolutely right imo! More quibbling with the solutions

 

[cleavers]

Granted the injury list is laughably bad, but City will now miss CL qualification for the 2nd time in the last 3 seasons. Over a season thats just not acceptable for a club with our resources.

"Resources" include the players available, and that list above is ridiculous, and out of that list 5 are relatively new recruits.

I've said this all season, and I'll stick by it, if everyone was fit we'd have one of the strongest squads in the country.