At long last, Manchester City have been crowned WSL champions, ending a decade-long wait for England’s greatest prize.

For six consecutive seasons, Chelsea have reigned supreme in the women’s top-flight, rewriting records year after year. Last season they earned the highest points tally in a single campaign to epitomise a seamless passing of the torch from Emma Hayes to Sonia Bompastor, and inflict further agony on their northern rivals.

But while Chelsea’s dominance in past seasons has undoubtedly been impressive, it’s fair to say it has cast something of a shadow over proceedings. A one-horse race may feel glorious for the club lifting the silverware, but it risks stifling wider interest in the women’s game, especially in the wake of another landmark summer for the Lionesses, when momentum is more crucial than ever.

But this season, through the arrival of a passionate and enigmatic new manager and exciting new signings, City have managed to rediscover their glory days of ten years ago, when Lucy Bronze, Georgia Stanway, Jill Scott and Steph Houghton hallowed the turf of the formerly named Academy Stadium.

City have been Chelsea’s closest challengers in recent years, but their title pushes have on numerous occasions faltered painstakingly at the final hurdle, undone by injuries and a lack of cutting edge when it mattered most.

Last season epitomised that pattern. After being denied their first WSL crown in eight years on goal difference in 2023-24, City opened the new campaign with a 12-match unbeaten run. Yet the momentum soon unravelled: a defeat at Stamford Bridge, and City’s most important players in Alex Greenwood, Lauren Hemp, Vivianne Miedema, and Bunny Shaw all heading up a lengthy injury list for the second half of the season.

By January, Chloe Kelly had forced a loan move away via a highly public acrimonious split, while academy graduates Lily Murphy and Gracie Prior were thrust into regular starting roles. Defeat to Chelsea in the League Cup final sealed Gareth Taylor’s fate, and interim boss Nick Cushing guided a depleted squad to a fourth-place finish and confirming their omission from European football this season. It felt as if the weight of another disappointing season was starting to take its toll, while the sight of Kelly lifting the Champions League with Arsenal twisted the knife.

But, as the anarchists would have us believe, destruction also leaves room for possibility and creation. And, indeed, the first shades of optimism returned to City’s blank slate through the arrival of new head coach Andree Jeglertz a few weeks later – and his upbeat presence immediately lifted the mood.

Jeglertz may have been little known in England, but he landed in Manchester with a solid record, the 53-year-old a Champions League winner in charge of Umea in 2004 as well as a two-time Manager of the Year recipient in Sweden, marking him out as one of Scandinavia’s most reputable coaches.

Colleagues describe Jeglertz as charismatic and approachable, while City women’s director Therese Sjogran had tried on three previous occasions to secure his signature.

Crucially for City, Jeglertz favoured ‘the City way’ – a similar style of football aligned with the men’s and academy teams. Equally, Jeglertz also showed he was willing to rotate and adapt his squad. That flexibility was seen as a welcome shift from Taylor’s overreliance on his starting XI, which insiders felt contributed to the previous season’s injury struggles.

Even before this season, City had boasted arguably the league’s most formidable squad at full fitness. Bunny Shaw has been dominant in the No 9 role for successive seasons, while January 2025 signing Kerolin was growing increasingly menacing down the right flank. Lauren Hemp and Alex Greenwood, two-time Euros-winning Lionesses, bring proven quality and composure, and Yui Hasegawa anchors the midfield as the league’s standout defensive midfielder.

But the City hierarchy recognised they still needed strength in depth, even if the lack of European football meant that they were playing far less games than their competitors – a significant advantage this time around.

Thus, the club opted to bring in players on both ends of experience and youth. Germany’s Sydney Lohmann – a Bayern Munich serial winner who was famously on the receiving end of former City star Jill Scott’s ire in the Euro 2022 final – joined to strengthen the midfield, while 19-year-old Swiss breakout star Iman Beney added pace and creativity. In January, United States midfielder Sam Coffey also joined the ranks in a statement transfer.

Manchester City ended Chelsea’s dominance of the WSL to clinch the league title

City were crowned champions after Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw by Brighton on Wednesday

With one of the strongest medical departments in the women’s game and a thriving academy that has produced players like Prior and Murphy – albeit called upon sooner than some might have liked last season – it was felt by those at the top that Jeglertz had everything at his disposal in terms of a platform for success this season.

Jeglertz spent his early days encouraging the players to take more responsibility in training. In one of his first sessions, rather than walking them through the videos himself, he asked the squad to split into groups and work out the tactics together.

Even though there was a defeat in the first game of the season to Chelsea, there was still the sense that City had outplayed the champions despite the result. It was merely a matter of how they would psychologically recover from the loss given the fine margins of how titles in this league are so often clinched.

Indeed, City went on a 13-game winning streak that lasted until February, and which included a 5-1 thrashing of Chelsea in the return leg at home and a league double over Manchester United. A closely fought meeting with Arsenal finally ended their streak with a 1-0 defeat at the Emirates Stadium. Where in seasons past the result may have meant a derailing of confidence, City responded the following weekend with a 6-0 thrashing of Leicester.

Against Chelsea, they were happy to concede possession in favour of a jump press at opportune moments, and their performance was testament of their adaptability under Jeglertz. The fact that it was working so comprehensively helped reinforce their new way of doing things.

City’s players gathered to watch Arsenal’s game and were seen celebrating after the result

The arrival of new head coach Andree Jeglertz and his upbeat presence immediately lifted the mood at City

‘We had a setback last year, no Champions League, and we sat down as a group at the end of last season and had an honest conversation between ourselves,’ Shaw said last November. ‘There’s a mentality shift compared to last season. This season we just need the three points. Last season we fell short in a couple of the games but this season the mentality is the biggest thing.’

And while those new arrivals were acclimatising, the pre-existing members of the City side such as Vivianne Miedema and Kerstin Casparij were re-discovering their best-ever form. It was telling that their third defeat of the season, against Brighton last month, was when they were without Miedema – her partnership with Shaw a crucial facet in the side.

The WSL all-time top scorer said earlier this season: ‘As I’ve got older in my career and more experienced, I don’t think I’m as stuck on just having to score goals. I can contribute so much more to the game. I need to adapt my game to what others need around me and I’m loving playing that role right now.’

But perhaps the most striking aspect of City’s title win is that it has felt less like a sudden surge and more like the product of years of hard lessons. Near-misses, injuries, tactical tweaks and a shift in mentality have all fed into a campaign where talent has finally been matched by ambition.

In ending Chelsea’s era and reclaiming a prize that had begun to feel just out of reach, City have reset the balance at the top of the WSL. Not only that, but this does not feel like a one-off. In fact, it feels like they are just getting started.