City finally delivered on their potential

The 2025-26 Women's Super League season is officially in the books, and Manchester City are your champions. Read that again. Let it sink in.

Not Chelsea. Not a miraculous late Arsenal surge that always seems to fall short. Manchester City.

After years of looking like the wealthiest, most frustrating underachievers in the women’s game, Gareth Taylor’s squad finally put it all together. They dragged the WSL trophy back to the blue half of Manchester, and they left a trail of battered reputations in their wake.

If you listened to the latest episode of The Guardian's Women’s Football Weekly pod, you heard Faye Carruthers, Suzy Wrack, Sophie Downey, and Marva Kreel breaking down the wreckage of this campaign. And honestly, "wreckage" is the exact right word for what City did to the rest of the league this year.

They didn't just sneak into first place on a technicality or rely on a lucky bounce on the final day. They took the crown, put it on their heads, and dared anyone in the country to try and take it off them.

This was supposed to be the year the league broke wide open. With Emma Hayes packing her bags for the US Women's National Team a couple of seasons ago, the Chelsea dynasty was always going to hit a speed bump eventually.

You don't just lose a manager of that caliber—a legitimate generational force of nature—and keep humming along without missing a beat. The door was left ajar. The question hanging over the league since August was simply who had the guts to kick it off the hinges.

The answer, emphatically, was Gareth Taylor and a squad that finally got sick of hearing about their own unfulfilled potential.

The Chelsea hangover and Arsenal's tragic comedy

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Chelsea have owned this league for so long that half the fanbase probably forgot what it looks like when someone else lifts the trophy.

They had an aura. Teams used to line up in the tunnel against Chelsea and you could see they were already beaten. But transitions are absolutely brutal.

You can't replace an institution like Hayes overnight, and the cracks finally showed for the Blues this season. They looked mortal.

They dropped points in matches they used to sleepwalk through, gave up late goals, and looked visibly frustrated when teams refused to just roll over and die. It turns out that when you remove the greatest manager in WSL history from the touchline, the invincibility cloak goes with her.

But the real comedy of the season? Arsenal. My god, Arsenal.

If bottling was an Olympic sport, they’d take gold, silver, and bronze, then drop the medals on the way to the podium. Every single time the Gunners had a chance to seize control of the title race, they tripped over their own shoelaces.

It is downright baffling how a squad loaded with that much international talent consistently finds ways to short-circuit in the biggest moments.

You can't blame injuries forever. The ACL crisis of years past is a valid excuse, but at some point, you have to look at the mentality of the dressing room.

While City were grinding out ugly 1-0 away wins on miserable Sunday afternoons in the rain, Arsenal were busy passing the ball side-to-side for eighty minutes before conceding on a tragic counter-attack.

The gap between the two sides isn't just points on the table; it's a massive gulf in killer instinct. As The Guardian panel nailed it when they reviewed the teams—some squads have the grit to win ugly, and others just have really good social media PR.

Gareth Taylor's ultimate vindication

We need to have a serious, uncomfortable conversation about Gareth Taylor. Two years ago, if you took a poll of City fans, about ninety percent of them would have personally driven him to the airport.

The football felt stagnant, possession without purpose. The big-game management was questionable at best.

The fans were restless, and honestly, the media was already writing his professional obituary on a weekly basis. But the man simply refused to flinch.

The City board backed him when it would have been incredibly easy to pull the plug, and that stubborn patience just paid out the biggest dividend possible. Taylor tweaked the system, stopped overthinking his rotations, and just let his best players cook.

He figured out that if you have Khadija Shaw on the pitch, your primary tactical instruction should probably be to give her the ball and get the hell out of her way.

It sounds simple, but you'd be amazed how many top-level managers overcomplicate the obvious. Taylor simplified the approach.

City became defensively rigid, brutally efficient in transition, and absolutely ruthless inside the penalty area. He absorbed all the criticism, swallowed the bitter pills from previous seasons, and turned City into a machine that simply did not break down when the pressure spiked.

The vindication tour must be incredibly sweet.

The Bunny Shaw supremacy

You absolutely cannot talk about this title without talking about Khadija 'Bunny' Shaw. She is, without an ounce of hyperbole, the most terrifying striker on the planet right now.

Defenders don't mark her; they merely try to survive her. She spent the entire season bullying center-backs, scoring from impossible angles, and generally making a mockery of the league's defensive structures.

When City needed a goal to break a frustrating deadlock, Shaw provided it. When they needed someone to hold the ball up and relieve pressure in the final ten minutes of a tight game, she did that too.

It is a genuine privilege to watch a player operating at the absolute peak of their physical and technical powers. Lauren Hemp gets the viral highlight reels with her mazy runs down the flank, and Chloe Kelly brings the flair, but Shaw is the undisputed, undeniable engine of this title run.

And let's give a massive amount of credit to the midfield. The work rate in the center of the park for City this year was bordering on psychotic.

They strangled the life out of games. They won the second balls, they broke up counters before they even started, and they fed the frontline with terrifying precision.

It wasn't always beautiful, free-flowing football. Sometimes it was just violent efficiency. And frankly, that's exactly what you need to win a gruelling league campaign.

The reality check: Europe is a completely different beast

But let's pump the brakes for a second before we declare this the start of a ten-year Manchester City dynasty. Because as brilliant as City were domestically, their European ambitions still look suspiciously fragile.

It is the one massive, glaring hole in this entire operation, and it requires a harsh dose of reality. You can dominate the WSL all you want, but until you can go toe-to-toe with Barcelona or Lyon on a Tuesday night in the Champions League and not look visibly terrified, there is a hard ceiling on your greatness.

City’s squad depth is going to be tested heavily next season. Winning a domestic title is hard. Defending it while navigating the absolute meat grinder of European football is a completely different nightmare.

Chelsea struggled with that balance for years. Arsenal have been humiliated trying to juggle both. If Taylor thinks he can run the same tight rotation next year and get the exact same results, he's going to find out the hard way that top-flight football doesn't work like that.

They need serious reinforcements this summer.

They need another natural goalscorer to take some of the weight off Shaw, because if she goes down with an ankle tweak, this whole beautiful system could collapse like a cheap tent.

The backline needs an injection of raw pace, and the midfield needs someone who can dictate tempo when European teams decide to sit deep and put ten players behind the ball.

Looking ahead to the summer transfer chaos

So where do we go from here? The upcoming transfer window is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

Chelsea aren't just going to sit quietly and accept being second best. They are going to spend wild amounts of money to reclaim their throne.

Arsenal will probably sign another flashy winger instead of the gritty defensive midfielder they actually need. And Manchester United... well, who even knows what is happening at Manchester United anymore.

They remain a massive club operating like a mid-table sideshow.

City are the kings of the mountain today. They earned every single bit of this celebration, and they proved every single doubter wrong.

But the target on their back is officially massive now. The WSL is completely unhinged, the historical power structures are shifting rapidly, and next season is already shaping up to be an absolute war.

For now, City fans should just soak it in. Drink the overpriced stadium beer, buy the commemorative scarves, and enjoy the deafening silence coming from London.

Your team finally stopped talking about their potential and actually delivered the damn goods. It only took a few years of agonizing heartbreak to get here.