Manchester Metropolis boss Gareth Taylor is the WSL’s longest-serving supervisor after Emma Hayes’ departure from the Chelsea on the finish of the 2023-24 season.
Taylor, 51, has been in cost on the Academy Stadium for over 4 years, first appointed in Might 2020.
He has but to guide the workforce to a WSL title, however has loved loads of success since taking the job. Right here’s all the things you should know in regards to the Metropolis coach and his profession up to now
Gareth Taylor: His profession up to now
Gareth Taylor was beforehand a participant at Metropolis – later rejoining the teaching employees
Like just a few of his fellow WSL managers, Taylor had a distinguished enjoying profession within the males’s skilled sport earlier than turning into a coach.
Born in Weston-Tremendous-Mare, Taylor’s first professional contract got here at a West Nation membership, with Bristol Rovers providing him a deal. A four-year spell within the early nineties adopted, with Taylor then turning out for Crystal Palace and Sheffield United.
Gareth Taylor is focusing on silverware (Picture credit score: Linnea Rheborg – UEFA/UEFA by way of Getty Photos)
Then got here his first encounter with Manchester Metropolis, the ahead signing for the membership in November 1998 – with Metropolis struggling in Division Two on the time.
Happily the Residents bought themselves promoted at Wembley in dramatic style by way of the play-offs, earlier than reaching the Premier League the next 12 months.
Taylor later loved profitable spells at Burnley at Nottingham Forest earlier than retiring in 2011 while at Wrexham. By that time his teaching profession had already begun in earnest, often taking cost of Wrexham’s reserve facet.
First re-joining Metropolis as under-16 coach, Taylor had varied youth improvement roles on the membership he performed for, earlier than he was supplied the ladies’s job in Might 2020 changing Nick Cushing.
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Inside months of his reign, Taylor had Metropolis’s first trophy within the bag for the reason that 2017 Ladies’s FA Cup, profitable the 2020 version of the identical match after a 3-1 win over Everton at Wembley.
Constructing an thrilling attacking workforce across the likes of Lucy Bronze, Keira Walsh and Caroline Weir, Taylor led Metropolis to a powerful second-place end in 2020-21, with the anticipated subsequent step being s league championship.
However more durable instances adopted, Metropolis misplaced three of their first 4 video games the next season and had been out of the title race instantly, finally ending a distant third. Taylor then misplaced Bronze and Walsh to Barcelona after the pair helped England win Euro 2022 on residence soil.
What has adopted since has been a gentle restoration to get Metropolis again to the highest of the home tree. Taylor’s workforce flirted with the title in 2023 earlier than back-to-back defeats away at native rivals Liverpool and Manchester United ended their probabilities.
Final season was arguably Taylor’s greatest as a supervisor up to now, profitable 18 out of Metropolis’s 22 league video games. But on the ultimate day Chelsea had been but once more champions. That, coupled with 1 / 4 last FA Cup exit on penalties to Tottenham, means the strain is beginning to develop on Taylor to win some silverware in 2024-25.
Can he ship? With an assault of England stars Chloe Kelly and Lauren Hemp, Matilda Mary Fowler and goalscoring phenomenon Bunny Shaw, Metropolis and Taylor have a terrific likelihood.
