Khadija Shaw urges Manchester City to ‘keep pushing’ after strong end to year

Khadija Shaw has impressed in a string run of wins for Manchester City (Tim Markland/PA)

Khadija Shaw has stressed she and her Manchester City team-mates must “keep pushing” after their impressive finish to 2023.

Following back-to-back defeats in the Women’s Super League in early November, Gareth Taylor’s side subsequently beat Manchester United 3-1 in an Old Trafford derby and thrashed Tottenham 7-0 before last month winning 2-1 against Aston Villa and 4-1 at Everton in the build-up to the winter break.

Striker Shaw scored seven times across those four victories, including hat-tricks against Spurs and Everton, and was named Barclays Player of the Month for December.

Khadija Shaw with the Barclays Player of the Month award for December (Isaac Parkin/Manchester City/Barclays)

The league resumes next week with Shaw leading the Golden Boot standings on nine goals and City – chasing a first WSL title since 2016 – lying second in the table, and she told the PA news agency: “We spoke about finishing 2023 strong and I think we’ve put ourselves in a great position to crack on to try to compete for winning the league.

“We just have to keep pushing, keep improving, just focus on what we can control, and we’ll see.

“It’s about being consistent. We’ve had some really good results but let ourselves down in other games. Now we’re in a good place, it’s about just keeping it and keeping the confidence high within the group.”

City have four more points than United and the same as Arsenal, three behind Chelsea, who are in their final season under boss Emma Hayes as they aim for a fifth successive WSL crown, and have just lost star forward Sam Kerr to an ACL injury.

Shaw added: “I don’t tend to look at what’s going on on the outside,