Miedema herself admits that she is still seeking her very best form following the ACL injury in December 2022. She has played only 16 club games since for Arsenal and City, whom she joined last summer.
A winter training camp in Saudi Arabia, Miedema says, has proved helpful.
“For me, I just want to take responsibility to put us back on top again and I am really happy to have been able to do that today,” she told Sky Sports after being named player of the match versus Villa.
“In Riyadh during the training camp we did a lot of shooting and I just feel really good today. For the second goal I did a scan and knew there was someone behind me, but I was in a good position to just hit it.
“I am actually just happy to be back out there and I am taking all of the small wins. I felt this sharp probably before this all (ACL injury) happened. I gave myself the time to come back properly and I hope we can see the benefits in the rest of the season.
“With my rehab I feel strong, I feel good and I feel like I have done the right things this time around. I hope I can keep building on minutes and get back to my level.”
To say City are back would be a stretch. Avoiding three successive defeats for the first time since October 2021 is great, but they are still six points off the top and have games against their fellow top three sides on the horizon.
Former England defender Fern Whelan told BBC 5 Sports Extra: “What we are seeing is a City side slowly getting back to themselves. The one thing is that they need to sure up defensively. There are still question marks there and they have games against Arsenal and Chelsea to come.”
The injuries still don’t stop for City and Taylor. After Kelly was added to the list, Laura Coombs exacerbated a thigh injury in the warm-up at Villa Park and had to pull out of the starting XI.
But, with Shaw and particularly Miedema returning, Taylor had reasons to be cheerful following his 100th WSL match in charge of City.
“We still have to be mindful with Khadija. We were strict with 15 minutes today and no more,” he said. “Same with Viv. We were stretching her to 90 minutes.
“Getting both on pitch at the same time, that’s the next task.”
