Man City sweep Barclays WSL manager & player awards for March

Manchester City boss Gareth Taylor has been named the Barclays WSL manager of the month for March, with prolific striker Khadija Shaw winning the player of the month award.

City won all three WSL games they played during March to underline their challenge for a top three place and maybe more in what remains of the campaign.

Those three victories extended City’s unbeaten run in the WSL to 14 games since back-to-back defeats in September, as well marking a return of 38 points from a possible 42 available during that overall run of excellent form.

Taylor’s team started the month of March with what was eventually a fairly routine 3-1 win over Tottenham at the Academy Stadium. Although Spurs took a surprise lead, Shaw popped up with a clinical hat-trick, scoring just before and just after half-time and completing the treble late on.

Her goalscoring this season has made the Jamaican the hot favourite to land the WSL Golden Boot and she didn’t let up a week later by getting both City goals in a narrow 2-1 win over Brighton.

That game threatened to be a banana skin for City, having seen Elisabeth Terland cancel out Shaw’s opening goal and it looking as though the points would be shared. But the star forward pulled her team through to victory when she popped up with the 89th minute winner.

What’s more those goals from Shaw took her to 26 in all competitions for the season, setting a new club record for most goals scored in a single campaign.

Then it was all about what City could do against Chelsea to finish March on Women’s Football Weekend and the gameplan was executed perfectly. Top quality first half goals from Filippa Angeldahl and Lauren Hemp made the difference to inflict Chelsea’s first WSL defeat since September.