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Manchester City has officially opened their ÂŁ10 million women's headquarters, featuring a unique circular dressing room design. The facility aims to foster equality among team members and enhance their training environment.
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Manchester City unveil their ÂŁ10m womenâs headquarters. Whatâs next for the new WSL champions?
From where Alex Greenwood sits, the Manchester City Women captain can look into the eyes of all of her team-mates at once. That was the point, or more accurately, the lack of points.
The dressing room at Cityâs new ÂŁ10million purpose-built womenâs first-team headquarters, which the team moved into in April and has been officially opened today, consciously omits points. It is an unambiguous circle, organised by shirt number and running clockwise. A fully-loaded kit and nutrition table from which to plunder at will sits in its centre, but is not so tall that Greenwood could ever fail to look any one of her team-mates in the eye. Â
Circular dressing rooms are hardly groundbreaking. Feng shui zealots, the architect Charles Deacon and even former Chicago Bulls head coach Phil Jackson have long espoused the ostensible functional and spiritual efficiency of curves and circles. The intended message is roughly the same: Within this cylindrical sanctuary, all is and are equal.Â
As with anything, of course, there are exceptions. Like, for example, when Greenwood turns to look into the eyes of the player next to her before heading out to train ahead of Cityâs final Womenâs Super League match of the season on Saturday away to West Ham United, it is not into those of Jade Rose, who wears shirt number four, who should, if following mathematical proofs, precede Greenwoodâs No 5.Â
Instead, Greenwood stares into the eyes of Cityâs No 9, Khadija âBunnyâ Shaw.Â
That Cityâs equal-style, numerical-order dressing room has an exception allowing for Greenwood and Shaw to have side-by-side spots is not a problem for anyone. Emma Deakin, the clubâs head of performance services, laughs when it is pointed out on a media tour of the facilities. Greenwood and Shaw have been here since the beginning. They have always sat by each other. âSince day one,â Greenwood says. âThat was something we wanted to continue.â
The new women's headquarters cost ÂŁ10 million.
The dressing room is designed in a circular shape to promote equality among team members.
Manchester City Women moved into their new headquarters in April.
The captain of Manchester City Women is Alex Greenwood.
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Of course, one of the biggest questions plaguing City in the week following their first WSL title in a decade and their 3-2 FA Cup semi-final victory over cup holders and outgoing WSL champions Chelsea is whether or not their two-time (on track for three-time) WSL Golden Boot winner Shaw will continue to wear their blue shirt next season.Â
The question has threatened to overshadow Cityâs historic triumph and potential double, and is one that will need addressing in the coming months, particularly as they bid to ensure this WSL championship is not anomalous but foundational.Â
The Athletic runs through five key areas that City will actively address in the coming months as they bid to build on their 2025-26 success.Â
Barring an exceptional change of circumstances, the Jamaica international striker and two-time WSL Golden Boot winner (soon to be three with her 19 goals in 21 league appearances; the player in second place has scored 12) looks set to depart City upon the expiration of her contract this summer.Â
The Athletic reported last week that the 29-year-old had been close to staying at City, whom she joined in June 2021 from French club Bordeaux. However, negotiations broke down over the finer details, including contract length, according to sources briefed on the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships.Â
The Athletic reported in April that Chelsea are among the interested parties and have made a contract offer worth at least ÂŁ1million ($1.36m) per year. Shaw has also received offers from outside the WSL, including Europe and the National Womenâs Soccer League (NWSL) in the U.S. but no decision has been made yet.
To lose Shaw on a free transfer to the very club you have just dethroned as WSL champions is a potential public relations disaster, but also â and arguably more crucially â a footballing one. Shaw has come to represent Cityâs strength and potential. In 134 appearances across all competitions, she has scored 112 goals, while setting a litany of club and league records, including becoming the first City player in the womenâs gameâs professional era to reach 100 goals and completing the WSLâs fastest hat-trick.
While City boasted 12 different league goalscorers this season and plenty of attacking talent, Shaw is outscoring their second-highest goalscorer, Vivianne Miedema, 19 to 10. Her late brace against Chelsea in that FA Cup semi-final on Sunday, an added-time equaliser and then the extra-time winner, was the latest example of her incomparable status as one of the best forwards in womenâs football worldwide.Â
Asked about Shawâs potential exit, Greenwood insists she didnât know the future of her team-mate.Â
âRight now, for me, Bunnyâs our player,â she says. âSheâs also a really, really good friend of mine. I would love Bunny to stay at this football club forever. What sheâs done for this club is incredible. Sheâs an incredible person, I absolutely love her and hope Iâm celebrating with her for many years to come.âÂ
If Shaw is to leave, finding a quality replacement will be critical.Â
Yet City Women managing director Charlotte OâNeill, who works closely with the sideâs director of football Therese Sjogran on recruitment but allows the latter to lead strategy, does not anticipate any type of âoverhaulâ this summer.Â
âWe were saying that weâve built this team, especially over the last two years, you can see the depth is there that we didnât have before,â OâNeill told assembled media on Tuesday. âOur plan is always to move and to be in the market for top talent.Â
âItâs about adding in the key positions that we need, so weâll make moves, but we donât need an overhaul. Weâve got one of the youngest squads in the league thatâs playing brilliantly together.â
As The Athletic reported last month, City are pursuing a deal for England winger Beth Mead, who will leave Arsenal this summer upon the expiry of her contract. While sources at the club insist the move for the 31-year-old is about bolstering the experience and winning mentality of the squad, other sources question the merit of recruiting an older winger given the quality in wide positions already at coach Andree Jeglertzâs disposal, including Kerolin, Aoba Fujino, Mary Fowler, Iman Beney and Lauren Hemp, some of whom have struggled for consistent starts.
City have also shown interest in Arsenal right-back Katie McCabe, with full-back being a key area in need of recruitment ahead of a more demanding 2026-27 season that will include a return to the Champions League.
According to OâNeill, maintaining Cityâs momentum requires three parts.Â
Having the best talent (âfinding, developing and keeping itâ).
Having the best staff.
Having the environment.
City fans will read the words âkeeping itâ and invariably point angrily at the prospect of losing Shaw as a free agent.Â
Indeed, itâs difficult not to see the irony.
But OâNeill also emphasises the importance of the two other words in that first point: finding and developing.Â
Having spent eight years at Cityâs boysâ academy, OâNeill has helped develop talents such as Phil Foden, Rico Lewis and Nico OâReilly, underscoring how crucial it is to nurture a strong youth system for sustained success.Â
Next season, the womenâs setup at the club will have seven academy sides, including a fully professional ânext generationâ team training full-time at City Football Academy, using the pitch right next to the seniorsâ one. Those next-gen players will have a bespoke education programme âidentical to what we offer for our boysâ, according to OâNeill, while City have also appointed former City and England forward Izzy Christiansen to help with coaching.Â
âThe investment weâre making in the academy means weâre hoping to build this winning machine that just keeps going and going,â OâNeill says.Â
âOne of the benefits of higher salaries and bigger transfer fees is that this means academies make perfect business sense. No one wants to go out and spend money they donât need to when theyâve got elite talent in their own academy.âÂ
OâNeill called the introduction of academy contracts this summer âtransformationalâ, while also noting that sheâd be open to having a City B-team competing in a division lower down in the English pyramid to help prepare academy players for professional football.Â
Incorporating more youngsters into matchday squads at senior level is easier said than done.
The gap between age-group and first-team environments remains significant, and while Cityâs new facilities have the academy pitches located alongside the first teamâs one to increase a sense of visibility and communication between the two groups, Jeglertz has often chosen this season to incorporate boys from the City Football Group into his teamâs training sessions rather than girlsâ academy players due to the physical and technical limitations of the latter.
Cityâs first title triumph in a decade was celebrated raucously by players and staff, but that doesnât mean every moment this season was happy.
A significant factor in them becoming champions was the kindness of the fixture schedule, but Jeglertz admits that, due to the lack of European games following their fourth-place finish a year ago, some players were left âunhappyâ when regularly left out of the starting XI.Â
The increase in matches next season with European football returning should mandate more rotation.Â
âWe have too many good players to play these few games that we are playing,â Jeglertz said. âThe squad is built for more games. Thatâs been the biggest challenge this season. But then I just need to make sure that Iâm communicating all the time with them and showing that I trust to put them in. Otherwise, itâs just going to be empty words.â
Of course, managing the load of Europe is another matter entirely, as Cityâs 2024-25 season showcased, with an already-small squad left threadbare and gasping by the end.
Jeglertz, OâNeill, Greenwood and Deakin all insist that the new facilities will help ensure they can cope with the greater demands next time.
Indeed, before this season, the womenâs team formerly shared facilities with Cityâs boysâ academy. This left the womenâs first team working around the gym and physio schedules of other sides. Deakin recalls how each September, when the boysâ academy players returned to school, the women often suffered from sickness due to being exposed to bugs the lads had picked up, while meal plans were often a matter of what was left available rather than what was required for elite female athletes.Â
Having their own space that operates strictly and specifically to the womenâs teamâs schedule and needs increases performance optimisation, says Deakin.
Players have immediate access to the nutrition they need both before and after training and rehabilitation. The club have hired three dedicated chefs, as well as nutritionists, to create individualised meal plans, while also catering to cultural preferences (Cityâs Japanese players have been provided engraved chopsticks with which to eat, while Shaw, who does not like strawberries or blueberries, is made a âtropical fruitâ smoothie for post-match refuelling). There is also a hydrotherapy room, with hot and cold plunge pools as well as an underwater treadmill.Â
According to Deakin, some of the womenâs gym equipment has been made specifically to cater for the injuries that occur more predominantly in womenâs sport, notably lower-limb ones. Additionally, many of the physios and medical staff hired have arrived from elite sporting areas beyond football, such as rugby, triathlon and Britainâs Olympic teams or, in the case of Deakin, the military.Â
Upon his arrival last summer, former Denmark Women head coach Jeglertz was tasked with changing the mentality of a team who had finished as WSL runners-up six times in nine seasons.
The hows of doing so are intricate. OâNeill undertook a cultural evaluation, specifically asking whether staff and players felt empowered to communicate and trust each other. In response, City have made concerted efforts to incorporate squad bonding exercises and days out. The layout of the new facility further promotes communication and collaboration, OâNeill says, which has led to more honest conversations about standards and reaching them.
The offices of Jeglertz, Sjogran and OâNeill sit in the same area as the rest of the staff in the womenâs setup, while the teamâs analysis work takes place in the playersâ lounge, where staff and players also watched Arsenal drop points to Brighton and Hove Albion last week to confirm their title win. Analysis sessions are also more collaborative, with Jeglertz foregoing the cinema-style lecture space used by many coaches and instead asking his players and staff to help lead sessions and even incorporating breakout groups into the operation.Â
But the Swede is not afraid to call out standards not being maintained, even after victories, and ensuring those connections are strengthened in the coming months will be paramount as Cityâs title credentials are tested.
âI cannot guarantee (success next season),â Jeglertz says. âBut working to be a winning team is one thing. Now weâre not talking about acting like a winning team. We saw that in the Chelsea game. That was acting like winners.
âThatâs where we are from now on: winners that need to act like winners every day.â
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Manchester City, Women's Soccer
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