Manchester City fell short of another shot at silverware yesterday afternoon, as Robert Vilahamn’s Tottenham Hotspur side found victory at the death in an 120 minute arm wrestle at Brisbane Road Stadium.

The defeat in the capital marks the second of the week for the Cityzens, having also been knocked out of the FA Continental League Tyres Cup at the hands of Chelsea on Thursday evening.

Speaking to the media in his post-match press conference following the defeat, Gareth Taylor expressed his frustrations toward the suboptimal performance in Leyton.

“Really disappointed. I think we started the game really well, the first twenty five minutes I thought we were great. Scored a goal, thinking if we keep doing those same things then we’ll have a comfortable afternoon.

But second half, we couldn’t patch anything together. After that first twenty five minutes the game started to, I wouldn’t necessarily slip away, but we just weren’t ourselves. We didn’t do the things that we normally do so well.

It’s a frustrating one, but I have to be honest, I didn’t think that we deserved it. I’ve never really said that about our group.“

After a bumpy week for Manchester City, they now pay their full attention toward the Barclays Women’s Super League- which now may become thier only possible source of silverware to show for what has been an impressive 2023/24 campaign.

Deriving the positives from the one horse race that has now become of their trophy campaign, Taylor expressed that today’s FA Cup exit “makes it easy” to focus minds toward the league title.

He said,“You’ve got one competition to focus on. I just said that to the players, that has to be our focus, that has to be our ambition. We have to work tremendously hard to win it, as we know. We’ve got to be in there, and we are in there. We need to dust ourselves down and get ready for the next challenge.”

The Cityzens lead the charge right into the fixture’s dying moments, before a blunder at the back between Laia Aleixandri and Khiara Keating allowed Bethany England to trickle home the equaliser in the 95th minute of play. After what has been a stellar campaign for the 19 year-old goalkeeper, Taylor packed on the praise for Keating, despite the result in East London.

The City boss expressed,“Of course she’s going to be disappointed, she’s been fantastic. She was pretty good today as well, and one slight mix up at the back gives them an opportunity. But no blame- we win, lose, and draw as a team.”

Manchester City will look to bounce back this weekend, as the Cityzens travel back down south to face Brighton & Hove Albion in the Barclays Women’s Super League this Sunday.