Whether Manchester City would lift the Women’s Super League title in the decade after their last was never a question of ability or quality.
It has increasingly been one of nerve.
Since their 2016 tile triumph, City have finished runners-up in the WSL six times, seven reaching back to 2015. With two matches remaining in the 2023/24 season, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes threw the towel in to City, before picking it up two matches later, along with a fifth successive WSL trophy.
That degree of also-ran eventually begins to burrow, occupying the space behind the eyes.
So as the clock ticked down against Liverpool on Sunday, the match hung in a goalless noose along with City’s increasingly fragile advantage in the title race, the familiar question emerged: Did Manchester City really have the mettle for the top?
Rebecca Knaak’s injury-time winner from a corner answered a resounding yes. And while the vantage point from the outside seemed to imply a goal inspired by a sense of panic, crucially, within the squad, there was none.
In fact, for the 15 months, there has been no panic at Manchester City.
None as City’s staff and players congregated at the Joie Stadium training ground to watch Arsenal’s title-deciding draw with Brighton & Hove Albion, the team who defeated City 3-2 to send their title hopes into doubt. None as Frida Maanum drew Arsenal level in the second half, and Arsenal pushed desperately to keep the title race alive.
None, either, when long-time manager Gareth Taylor was sacked last March, just five days before their League Cup final against Chelsea. None when former manager Nick Cushing was appointed interim manager, returning after having left the job for New York City FC and men’s football. None, even as City entered the slide last season.
The 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in the aforementioned League Cup final. The hurling away of a two-goal advantage in the Champions League quarter-finals against Chelsea. The 2-0 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-finals. A small squad increasingly depleted by injuries.
Of their last seven games in all competitions that year, City won just three. They finished fourth in the Women’s Super League, a point off United, a point off Champions League qualification, no silverware to show for.
Chelsea, meanwhile, had stomped to a sixth successive title, finishing the season unbeaten, while claiming the League Cup and FA Cup. Arsenal were crowned European champions.
May came, and Cushing was leaving again.
A year later, City are lifting their first WSL title since 2016.
It might be tempting to look at City’s achievement in winning the title and ascribe it to a confluence of convenience.
This is City unburdened by the pressures of European football, boasting a squad that has avoided the injuries sustained last season and alchemised by the tactical nous of new manager Andree Jeglertz.
City’s title rivals, meanwhile, were conveniently collapsing from multi-front exhaustion, limited resources, the unnecessary meddling with perfectly-functioning dynasties. Even with the past few weeks of wobbles, dropped points and questions of City’s mettle, it was still assumed that City would emerge atop the heap.
But to reduce their triumph to mere good fortune would be to ignore the work that went in to making it possible, the seemingly small decisions with significant consequences The work, for example, of managing director Charlotte O’Neill.
To tell the story of City’s triumph, it is worth going back in time to the summer of 2024, when former manager Taylor lobbied for the permanent signing of Katie Startup after the goalkeeper spent the second half of the 2023-24 season on emergency loan from Brighton & Hove Albion.
That summer, sporting director Nils Neilsen left his role with immediate effect after 13 months in the role, leaving O’Neill in need of a new sporting director. Conversations over a permanent deal for Startup eventually led her to Therese Sjogran, a former Sweden international with over 200 international caps and the then-sporting director at FC Rosengard.
According to sources familiar with Sjogran’s work, the two-time winner of the Diamantbollen (Sweden’s player of the year) is a fierce competitor but an even fiercer protector and advocate for players, a result of her background in the game. Sjogran would not join a project if she did not feel she could put the players first in everything she did and wanted assurances that she could make decisions for what she believed not only would enable City’s pursuit for success but first and foremost what the players required to do so.
O’Neill recognised that Sjogran’s commitment to the players would marry well with her own commitment to the business-side of the club. She also admired Sjogran’s dogged work ethic, similar to her own, and the fearless certainty with which she pursued and made decisions. Sources inside and outside the club say O’Neill’s ability to hire Sjogran was a sign of O’Neill’s savvy and of her status within the City hierarchy.
Described as an efficient operator, O’Neill rose through the ranks at City, spending seven years in the men’s youth academy before being appointed director of women’s football in December 2023. The journey, sources say, gave O’Neill two valuable assets: knowledge about what City required to succeed and the status within the club to push for it.
It is why, three months after Sjogran’s appointment in December 2024, when Sjogran decided to part ways with Taylor amid a crucial 12-day run of fixtures, there was no cause for alarm.
The decision to sack Taylor was not taken lightly, and Sjogran had not intended to do so upon her appointment, sources say. However, the decision was made ultimately for the long-term progression of the club and the players and is described by many well-informed sources as a sign of Sjogran’s character and courage and the balance of trust between O’Neill and Sjogran.
After a season with no silverware and finishing outside the European places, O’Neill and Sjogran viewed the summer as a valuable time to address the small margins hampering their pursuit of success. The squad was strong, having been built smartly over the years, including by Nielsen, who brought in Auba Fujino, Vivianne Miedema, Ayaka Yamashita and Laura Blinkilde-Brown, while extending the contracts of midfielder Yui Hasegawa and left-back Leila Ouahabi. Deals were already in place for highly-rated Canada centre-back Jade Rose from Harvard University and Switzerland starlet Iman Beney in the summer, while U.S. midfielder Sam Coffey’s recruitment for January 2026 was also underway.
However, both understood that a technical alchemy was missing within the squad, as was the mental edge required to not only compete but to lift silverware.
While few in England knew of Jeglertz despite his two decades in elite management, Sjogran knew of Jeglertz’s potency in both of these areas from her time as a player in Sweden when she faced his 2004 European Cup-winning Umea side. His player-first approach to tactical and squad decisions married well with her own. Yet, the approach for Jeglertz, then manager of Denmark who were competing at the Women’s Euros, did not occur for many months after, as Sjogran and O’Neill considered other candidates.
While Jeglertz knew of City’s potential and the task that lay ahead, he admits surprise at the quality of players already at his disposal.
“Football-wise, because I know that the level was there, but just being here one week and seeing how many more things you can do with this group, that was exciting,” Jeglertz told The Athletic in March. “I say that still because there are some sessions we do, or matches like the one against Manchester United, when you see that there are no limits in this group. It’s just about what we need all the time to be a little bit better. But there are no limitations for the group.”
Jeglertz’s arrival brought changes on and off the pitch. Before arriving at City, he made multiple calls to former coaches and assistants asking about their experiences and advice before selecting his own backroom staff. Sources close to the squad describe Jeglertz’s immediate encouragement for better bonding amongst players, particularly outside of training hours, as well as improved communication between staff and players.
On the pitch, Jeglertz has focussed on “attacking freedom” while not being bound to rigid playing styles. Goalkeeping coach Diego Restrepo has also been integral to City’s efficiency at set-pieces. Of their 58 goals scored this season, 13 have come from corners, including their injury-time winner against Liverpool last weekend, which crucially kept the WSL title fate in their hands.
Jeglertz has also incorporated boys from the City Football Programme into regular training sessions throughout the season, to sharpen players’ physicality, raise the tempo and pace and bring unpredictability to sessions that has helped prepare players ahead of matches. Such incorporation is not common in England but something Jeglertz, who has coached in women’s and men’s football, has utilised throughout his two decades in elite management.
That Jeglertz has been able to do so speaks to his working relationship with O’Neill and Sjogran, which is described as open and honest but with clear boundaries of responsibility.
The season has not been without trial. City did not stomp unflappably to the title as many predicted in January. They stuttered, stumbled and, as the clock ticked down against Liverpool and the scoreline hung goalless, looked wholly capable of the spectacular failure that haunts club psyches for years.
Since the start of the season, Jeglertz has been tasked with reckoning with City’s self-belief. He has worked individually with players and spoken openly with the team about their ability to win, yet without teetering into hyperbole or effusive praise.
While he has addressed the possibility of the WSL title in press conferences, Jeglertz has refrained from speaking about it regularly in the dressing room. According to sources, the decision to do so is not born out of fear but as a means of levelling emotions, keeping heads calm and limiting the pressure on players that he feels can suffocate the self-belief he cultivated all season.
The results have been noticeable. At their best, City have played with an easy swagger that few, if any, competitors have come close to matching.
Continuing to hone the competitive edge needed to maintain their momentum into next season is partly why City have made moves to tempt Arsenal’s Katie McCabe and Beth Mead, players who won the 2018-19 WSL title with Arsenal, as well as multiple League Cup titles and last season’s Champions League. Mead is also a two-time European champion with England.
While some have questioned the decision to bring in two 30-year-old players from a rival team, whom City beat to the WSL title, team sources say Sjogran is unafraid to sign older players or commit to decisions that might surprise those on the outside, as her decision to sack Taylor demonstrated.
The decision to hire former Bristol City and England under-19s head coach Lauren Smith last month as Jeglertz’s assistant manager is viewed as a prime example of Jeglertz’s constant desire to improve even amid success. Smith is a highly-rated young tactician with a track record for developing young talent, a point of development O’Neill is keen on improving as City’s academy grows.
Even so, City’s ability to build on the momentum of a first title win in a decade will be the ultimate litmus test of their nerve to remain at the top. A more congested fixture schedule across multiple fronts will test Jeglertz’s ability to rotate his squad and keep players happy, particularly as more high-profile players join and expect regular minutes.
The future of Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw remains shrouded in uncertainty and the exit of the WSL’s Golden Boot winner and one of women’s football’s best strikers to a potential league rival threatens to represent a public relations disaster. But that panic remains on the outside.
Many within City feel the foundations from which to build have been set. The squad is strong and improving, as are the facilities. City is opening their new state-of-the-art first-team building worth an estimated £10million later this month. O’Neill’s vision for City is to become the best women’s football club on the global stage, on and off the pitch.
Pushing on, they believe, is a matter of time.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Manchester City, Women’s Soccer
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