Many moments of Manchester City's illustrious season, their best in a decade, stand out. Big goals, important results and colossal performances. But that is not enough to win a Women's Super League as competitive as this one. Not in 2025/26 anyway.
Man City's start to this campaign, a , tells you how far they have had to climb under Andree Jeglertz. The Swede had never coached in the WSL before. He had never managed a club outside of his native Sweden, in fact.
His appointment in the summer of 2025 therefore came with calculated risk. Jeglertz was known to be a serial winner in his homeland, notably with Umea IK, but how that translated in the WSL was a complete mystery. As it happens, his methodology has transferred tremendously well - but it didn't start that way.
Back in early September every observer, including this one, wrote about Chelsea's perfect lift-off to their title defence. Man City barely got an inch of column space because Chelsea tormented them. A baptism of fire for Jeglertz, as new-era City bore many of the stale hallmarks of the previous regime: performance over end result.
Perhaps that loss was a necessary evil. A blessing in disguise. Jeglertz's reading of the situation carried less conviction at the time but rings true now: "We are challenging Chelsea during the whole game and we will definitely do that throughout this season."
The return leg was won emphatically in February.
And if you would be kind enough to indulge this writer's early-season assertion - "Man City might not have liked the outcome, but they will be dangerous this season and hold definite title promise" - then really there should be little surprise at all in their triumph as champions. How they got here, though, should be considered less regular.
To be so dominant in such a fierce era takes extraordinary strength. It analyses every detail down to a fine art and still pores over how to be better. It takes every mistake or misplaced pass personally. And it demands a great coach with a sound strategy to knit it all together.
Manchester City have won 17 of their 20 WSL games since defeat at Chelsea, operating with an efficiency that last year's champions, who went unbeaten under Sonia Bompastor, couldn't even match. The numbers tell the tale.
Chelsea, as 2024/25 champions, looked like the graphic below. Solid but not spectacular. Most, though not all, games were won on the merit of their league-best defence. They were so hard to score against that winning by a 1-0 scoreline has become Chelsea's most frequent result under Bompastor - nine of 33 wins have been by that margin since she took charge.
But there were technical faults, too. Bompastor was always open about the stylistic tweaks she wanted. Only West Ham (431) and Leicester (441) registered more unsuccessful touches of the ball than Chelsea (419) across last season. They were dispossessed more times than any other side (323). And ranked behind Arsenal and Man City in almost every possession-based metric.
None of that context is to reduce the legitimacy of Chelsea's unbeaten campaign, the first team to do so across a 22 game season. Rather, it's intended to shine a light on how impressive City have been in their first year under Jeglertz, unlocking the potential that was there all along.
They have scored eight more goals than next-best Arsenal (50), winning the xG battle in 19 of 21 games. It's difficult to stop them from open play and even harder from set-pieces. City have netted a WSL-high 16 goals from set-plays - 13 from corners - which no team gets close to matching, conceding just one in the opposite direction.
They are the only side with a 100 per cent home record, winning all 11 outings with a goal difference of +28. And they have done all of this using the fewest players (23).
There is something quite striking about the way this team plays football, too. The intricacy of the triangles, the rotations, the press. All so coordinated. No side have recorded more open play sequences of 10+ passes (260). But perhaps more fascinating still is Jeglertz's approach.
"I'm not on the sideline telling them what to do," he maintains, "it has to be their decisions. They have come far in that feeling to be comfortable making their own decisions". While City under Gareth Taylor were rigid in a possession-based structure that looked better than it was in practice, Jeglertz's stamp is all about freedom. 'Always be available,' is his guiding principle.
The rest is about harnessing good vibes and energy. Jeglertz, described by those who know him as humble and likeable, talks a lot about "showing up" in the right way and he hammers home the message about "good habits" in most dressing room team talks. Every decision is player-centric, allowing the right culture to develop organically.
Such a process is easy to buy into because it makes each individual accountable for the one controllable in football: application. No striker scores as many goals as Bunny Shaw has without it. No midfielder is able to turn the ball over as many times as Yui Hasegawa. No forward is able to create as many big chances as Lauren Hemp.
No combination of players is as complete as Manchester City's.
Building to this point has happened over many seasons, many transfer windows, and many evolutions of a team. It took many setbacks, too. Losing the 2023/24 title to Chelsea on goal difference, dropping out of European competition altogether and after five years in charge all contributed to this crowning moment.
The reservoir of disappointment to draw from has helped create steely champions, unrecognisable from teams of before that buckled under the weight of expectation.
Former City midfielder turned Your Site pundit Izzy Christiansen believes City have struck the balance perfectly this year: "The team is full of world-class players. And then the culture speaks for itself, you can see the togetherness and the relentless mentality of the group.
"They have got a wonderful blend of senior leadership - Alex Greenwood, Rebecca Knaak, Viv Miedema - intertwined with youthful, hungry, fresh players. The talent in this team is born to be winners."
Besides, Man City are the neutral's choice. Chelsea's six-year reign of domination is officially over and that is a good thing for the rivalry of the league. The best football played by the most exciting and versatile collective of talent has won out.
Jeglertz's next, and arguably even harder, task is how to turn this first triumph into a cycle of continued success for many years to come.
