Euro 2020 star Chloe Kelly is back to her best form and seeing the benefits of competition in the Man City squad, manager Gareth Taylor has said.
Kelly, who scored the winning goal for England in the Euro 2021 Final at Wembley last summer, has recovered from an ACL injury that kept him out for most of last season to start 10 of his club’s 11 WSL matches this term.
The 25-year-old scored in City’s 7-0 thrashing of Sheffield United in the FA Cup last weekend, taking him to more minutes than he played for the club from last season. almost half of the campaign has been played and Leicester City are following Sky Sports this week.
After a poor start to the season and back-to-back defeats, City are now on a nine-game unbeaten run as Kelly plays his part in the resurgence – with Australian midfielder Hayley Raso pushing him to join them. part too.
“I’m glad to see him in this heavy training and helping out, and he looked like he had a lot of fun last Sunday,” Taylor said.
“There’s good competition there, Hayley Rasso is also helping, and Julie [Blakstad] on the other side is Lauren Hemp. I think it’s a great competition for players to be a part of.
“With Chloe we have to consider that she missed the whole last season. When you don’t get a lot of games under the belt, unfortunately the women’s game doesn’t always give you time, it’s difficult to find any kind of rhythm. This has been a good time for us because it’s the first time we have a week free from the New Year.
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“The players and I have a lot of fun playing for a few days, but you can’t stand it. It’s like feast or famine in the women’s game where you have a lot of games in a short time or no games for years. Try to find the rhythm, because that’s what they need, it’s very strong.
“He was very high in the summer but we knew it wouldn’t change what we had in the first half of the season because we knew we had a player who might still be trying to come back.
“We saw a lot of surprises from him in his first season. We know the players in there very well and he showed it on Sunday and he showed it in training and he was being pushed by other players.
“It’s a great place for him to be in and the biggest and most important thing is to see him with a smile on his face.”
Kirk: How hard work leads to luck and why Leicester Women are on the rise
Willie Kirk paused thoughtfully when asked how his first three months as manager of Leicester City Women had gone.
“I’ve loved it from the first moment…but if it had been left up to me, I wouldn’t have taken the job.”
It’s an honest assessment of the Scot, who replaced Lydia Bedford at the helm in early November. He had been the club’s first-team director for four months, having been sacked by Everton last October.
But the results on the pitch made a difference.
Read more about Man City’s opponents this week.
