'The team is stronger than it was last season'

Vivianne Miedema scored the winner as we secured a crucial three points against Manchester City on Sunday.

It was the Citizens' first defeat of 2019/20, and it saw us leapfrog them into second place in the Women's Super League.

Miedema spoke to the media after the match. This is what she said:

on her winning goal…

The most important thing is that we were back home and back to winning ways. Obviously I’m happy to help the team and I think it was a great team performance overall. 

on the unbeaten run at home…

We love playing at home and we’re really lucky with our stadium and the fans are amazing every time we play here and I just get a special feeling especially when we play a big game against Manchester City who are a big team and it makes it more special to get three points. 

on the feeling at full-time…

We wanted to bounce back after the game against Chelsea and I think we did that today and I think we probably should have scored two, or three more but we’re really happy and our focus turns to Thursday night. 

on players returning to full fitness…

I think the team is stronger than it was last season. At the moment we’re really lucky to have nearly everyone back and you can see that we’ve got quality even when we move the team around and perhaps on Thursday there will be a chance for other players to feature and that only makes us stronger. 

on breaking City down…

In the first half, we were really good and we knew if we were patient we would get the ball back and we’d create chances but it was tense. The moment did come and we collected the ball and when I make a run I know I’m probably going to get the ball and I think we deserved the goal before half-time. From that point onwards we controlled the game and I think we did that well today. 

on her personal fitness…

I’ve been struggling a little this week and I haven’t really trained all week so I was really happy to score the winner for the team. Coming back after playing for the national team it’s always hard especially for a couple of girls as we had different weeks away but it was great that everyone felt fresh and I think we were fitter than we were against Chelsea. It was smart for me not train this week, and I’m grateful to Joe for playing me anyway and I hope I’ve payed him back today. 

on the team’s mindset going into today’s match…

We knew Man City had a lot of quality and it was never going to be an easy game so we knew we had to be patient and we knew we had to be good defensively and that’s what has helped us today.