Canaries Flying High

On April 16th 2023, City Women played their first-ever league game at Carrow Road, beating fellow FAWNL Division One South East side Ashford Town in a 5-3 thriller. A month later, they returned to Carrow Road for the County Cup final, running out 3-0 winners to sign off on a memorable 22/23 season. Seven months on, the 23/24 season is halfway through and City have gone from strength to strength, entering the winter break second in the table. As 2023 draws to a close, here is a review of the season so far.

City began the season superbly, going on a ten-game unbeaten run across all competitions until the end of October. In the FAWNL Cup, they defeated AFC Bournemouth in an upset before going out to tier three side London Bees in the second round. City’s FA Cup run played out somewhat similarly, falling old foes Hashtag United with a tenacious performance at the Nest before faltering and going out to Boldmere St Michaels two weeks later.

The most impressive part of City’s season so far has been their form in the league, sitting second in the table with an unbeaten record of eight wins and three draws from eleven games. Though everyone at the club made a conspicuous effort to avoid the p-word and stress that the goal is simply to do as well as they can, promotion is a real prospect. City had transformed from perennial relegation candidates to a top-half team over the 22/23 season and gone up yet another level in the new campaign.

Summer signing Sarah Quantrill has quickly cemented herself as City’s new number one. Quantrill has been impervious between the sticks and elevated City’s defense. Indeed, she should be given major credit for City’s stellar defensive record so far in the campaign, conceding only eleven goals in eleven games – comfortably the best record in the division. Furthermore, Quantrill is more than just a shot-stopper but also an excellent sweeper. Her willingness to come off her line and sweep up balls in behind both alleviates the pressure on the defense and enables City to hold a high defensive line and counter-press aggressively.

City has an abundance of quality in defense thanks to excellent recruitment since summer 2022. In the full back department, the Yellows are blessed by three outstanding players in Anna Larkins, Alice Parker and new signing Lauren Tomlinson, and they have all been given the nod with multiple combinations being tested thanks to Parker’s ability to play on both sides.

A central defense composing of Ceri Flye and Mary Croft has also been strengthened by the arrival of Hope Strauss, with Flye as a nail-on starter thanks to her incredible athleticism and recovery pace as well as ability to win aerial duels and defend the box. Her injury in late September was a blow and forced a reshuffle. Larkins came on for Flye at centre back, and Herdman’s defense finally took shape with Tomlinson on the left, Parker on the right and Larkins partnering Strauss in the center.

City’s midfield had gelled last season with Eloise Morran, Katie Knights and Ellie Smith and it has been an area of continuity under the new regime. Morran is the archetypicalnumber six – the defensive midfielder who holds position in front of the defense, screening the backline and initiating attacks from deep with long balls forward.

Knights is the classic English box-to-box midfielder who brings dynamism and tenacity, harrying opposition players in defense with many a tackle (and yellow card) and driving forward in attack. Her ability to run with the ball and shoot from range makesher the engine of City’s midfield, netting three goals so far this season, while her incredible energy and work rate often see her pressing opposition players with lung-busting sprints long after her teammates’ intensity has dropped off. Smith is the last of the trio and arguably City’s most important player. A modern 10 with a touch of magic, Smith is the creative hub through which all City’s attacking moves run through, and she is given the freedom to roam and take up positions wherevershe can best influence the game. She is a technically brilliant player with a nose for goal and has come through for her team time and time again, often spinning away from multiple defenders before either scoring or assisting a teammate.

Just like Smith, Tash Snelling and Megan Todd have long been key players for City and remain so under Herdman, with Snelling leading the line and Todd on the right. Snelling is a prolific goalscorer while Todd is a fast and powerful wingerwho can be counted on to beat her full back as well as get on the score sheet.

A slightly different profile is favored on the left. Rachel Lawrence and Freya Symonds are both technically sound and like to cut inside and either attempt the shot from range or play in a teammate rather than looking to beat their marker on the outside for pace like Todd. Symonds, in particular, is known for her flair and can often be relied upon to produce moments of brilliance.

At their best, City are aggressive and direct, strong in duels and rapid in transition. Herdman has drilled his new charges into a proficient pressing side and in doing so made City far more dangerous. The value of a good high press is self-evident – as Jürgen Klopp famously declared, “No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation”.

A well-coordinated press can either force a turnover high and enable the forwards to attack quickly from a dangerous position or force defenders to go long and likely give the ball away, and it has broader implications too in City’s case. Smith’s importance to City is well-established by now and teams across the division have long taken to marking her tightly. Though Smith can and often does produce magic when double-teamed or even triple-teamed by defenders, the high press has offered another source of creativity – which in turn, reduced City’s dependence on their number nine somewhat. The FA Cup game with London Seaward is a case in point.

Traveling to the capital without either Smith or Snelling, City doubled down on the high press and succeeded in pinning the hosts in their own third until late in the day, when exhaustion set in and intensity dropped off. By then, however, the Canaries had secured a two-goal cushion to see out the game. The football on display was scrappy and the high press could not be sustained throughout the 90 (though Knights somehow had the energy to keep on running until the final whistle), but it got the job done. It was also an indication of the team’s growing adaptability and resilience – far from a happy flowers team that crumbles at the first sign of adversity, City can dig deep and grind out results even when they’re not at their best, and their strong away record this seasons attests to that.

City had been impervious at home last season, with six wins, two draws and only one loss at home, and the Nest had become something of a fortress. Their record away from home, however, was less impressive, with three wins, one draw and five losses, and Herdman spoke of his desire to improve that in the early days of his reign. Finishing the first half with a record of four wins and one draw from five games, City have met that target and in doing so, catapulted themselves into title contention. Most impressively, Flye’s injury had coincided with the beginning of a brutal run of five games on the road across all competitions and City won all but one of them.

The Strauss-Larkins partnership had quickly found its footing and with Tomlinson and Parker out wide, Quantrill had a reliable backline in front of her. Flye’s return signaled yet another stage of the evolution, with a back three being employed for the first time in the second half of the visit to Bees. The Yellows secured an emphatic 4-2 win against Ashford Town on their return to the Nest a week later, setting the stage for a showdown with Hashtag United on November 12th.

Hashtag need no introduction – they’d won Division One South East last season en route to promotion, dealing City their only loss at home with a brutal 7-1 beatdown. The Tags had started life in tier three flying, winning all but one of their opening nine games in the Southern Premier Division and Herdman showed his pragmatic side, setting up in a 5-4-1 mid-to-low block with Smith taking up the nominal left wing position. Faced with overwhelming odds, City needed a moment of magic and unsurprisingly, it was produced by their number 9, cutting inside and evading a number of blue shirtsbefore firing her shot into the bottom right corner. Nine minutes in, City had taken the lead. Hashtag resumed their attacks in vengeance, testing City’s defense time and time again in search of the equalizer, but the defenders dug in.

Quantrill had hit the ground running since her arrival and proved her mettle yet again, putting on a goalkeeping display that general manager Flo Allen would later describe as unbelievable. Time and time again, the visitors tested her; time and time again, she parried. Her willingness to come off her line and sweep up balls also allowed City to push slightly higher every now and then, holding onto the ball just long enough to catch their breaths before Hashtag would be on them again. The most crucial moment of the game came six minutes into stoppage time, when a Hashtag forward received near the six-yard box and looked for all the world like she would score, but Quantrill pulled off yet another superb save to keep her clean sheet. And when the full-time whistle came, it felt like a watershed moment.

City had knocked out an opponent that’d scored eleven goals against them in two games last season, and as Sweet Caroline came on the speakers while the players embraced each other, everyone at the Nest knew they were witnessing something special. City’s strong start to the campaign is certainly a feel-good story, especially given the turmoil the club as a whole is embroiled in, but it’s also a tale of grit and tenacity, of arelentless drive to keep going until they reach the promised land that is tier three.

The same grit was on display three weeks later during the top-of-the-table clash with AFC Wimbledon. The Dons had finished well above City last season and started the new campaign in similarly superb form, but though they managed to dominate proceedings it was City that had the last laugh, grinding out a 2-0 win thanks to two clutch finishes from Snelling. The win against Hashtag was no doubt the most euphoric moment of the season so far but the win against Wimbledon was by far the most important, and going into the second half level on points and only trailing the Dons on goal difference, City are in a good position to challenge for the title. The reverse fixture in March will likely be decisive.

The season is only at the halfway mark but the Herdman era has thus far been a success given the improvement City has already shown. And the manager deserves major credit for hitting the ground running and building upon the previous season’s work to turn the side into contenders. The new signings have similarly made an instant impact. Tomlinson has cemented herself as a starter and has been one of City’s most consistent performers. An outstanding athlete, City’s new number 21 is a two-way full back reliable in defense and audacious going forward, with her marauding runs down the left and long bullet throws quickly becoming familiar sights at the Nest.

Lawrence and Strauss are two other new arrivals who have started their fair share of the games, with the former having produced many moments of brilliance and the lattergiving City another reliable option in both defense and defensive midfield. By far the most important of the new arrivals, of course, is Quantrill who has been one of City’s standout players overall.

Herdman has relied on a strong core of players and they all deserve enormous credit for the strong first half. Aside from Quantrill, there are three other players who in my view ought to be singled out for their importance to the team. The first is, unsurprisingly, Smith. Though the past two summers have seen a flurry of transfer activities, Smith’s importance to City remains undiminished, and there’s a notable difference between how the Yellows play with and without their number 9. City at their best inevitably involves Smith at the heart of the action, taking on defenders and crafting out chances both for herself and others while the rest of the team revolved around her.

Snelling is an equally unsurprising choice. She has long been City’s talisman, scoring 12 goals in 17 starts last season – a joint second-best in the division. Her goalscoring exploits have continued into the new campaign, but her contribution is far more than just goals. An aspect of her game that has flown under the radar is her associative play, with City often going long into her whenever they struggle to get out. Snelling’s ability to hold off defenders with her back to goal and win aerial duels hasseen her often operating like a target man, dropping to offer herself as a target for long balls forward while opening up space for her teammates to attack.

Last but not least is Larkins. The skipper may be a somewhat surprising choice but her importance cannot be overstated. Indeed, City’s defense has seen considerable turnover since summer 2022 and Larkins has been the one constant. A right back who is intelligent and reliable on both ends of the pitch, herdeliveries having long been a potent weapon in City’s arsenal. Asked to fill in at center back at a moment’s notice, Larkins quickly made the position her own and has been City’s rock at the back through the ups and downs of the campaign. The fact that she has remained in central defense after Flye’s return only serves to highlight her importance. Comfortable on the ball and composed under pressure, Larkins is often charged with receiving the ball from Quantrill and initiating play, whether going short or long. As well as giving City more ballplaying ability in central defense, Larkins’ move to center back has also allowed both Tomlinson and Parker to be deployed.

Of course, there remain areas that need to be addressed. Four months into the Herdman era, teams have taken to sitting back and breaking forward quickly to deny City counter-pressing opportunities. Wimbledon had adopted this exact strategy and made life difficult for City. The Dons man marked Morran and Knights while jumping on the outside center backs to force turnovers and City resorted almost exclusively to going long into Snelling. They did well to come away as the winners, but the same could not be said the week before when they met Boldmere St Michaels in the FA Cup. Boldmere similarly forced City to go long, but the Yellows did not have the same success with summer signing Shannon Shaw up front. Shaw can be counted on for goals like Snelling but lacks her strength and struggled in the duels. Though City had plenty of possession, in the end they struggled to create chances and were knocked out by a controversial late winner. More teams will no doubt resort to this approach and it will be crucial for City to adapt.

Looking ahead, the second half of the season offers much promise. City is neck-to-neck with AFC Wimbledon in the race for the title – and with it, promotion to tier three – and it will likely go down to the wire. Flo Allen had set out the goal of climbing the football pyramid with a view to reaching the WSL one day upon her appointment and stressed the need to grow the women’s side sustainably, and City have taken important steps in both directions. The two league games at Carrow Road both saw attendances in the thousands while the Nest consistently draws crowds of over three hundred – a very respectable figure given the level of the competition as well as the paucity of public transport links, with only a single hourly bus service connecting town and Horsford. City have gone from strength to strength since full integration and with a spirited title challenge and the promise of another Carrow Road game in the second half, there is indeed much for Canaries fans to look forward to.