Any team without Vivianne Miedema, Khadija Shaw, Lauren Hemp and Alex Greenwood would drop their level.
City’s extensive injury list, which includes those key players, has severely impacted their campaign and thrust their lack of squad depth into question.
Jill Roord, Aoba Fujino, Rebecca Knaak, Laura Coombs, Naomi Layzell and keeper Ayaka Yamashita have also missed a significant number of games this season as City currently sit fourth in the WSL, seven points adrift of Manchester United in the final Champions League spot with just four games left.
They had only four outfield players on the bench in the second leg of their Women’s Champions League quarter-final defeat by Chelsea, where the Blues overturned a 2-0 first-leg deficit, and have ended the season with academy graduates Gracie Prior and Lily Murphy starting almost every game.
Interim manager Nick Cushing admitted the injury crisis “100% needs to be examined” in the summer – but it will not help his side now.
“With so many injuries, they can’t be all bad luck and they can’t all be down to bad practise,” he said.
“We have to look at everything. We have to look at why we’re sitting fourth in the league, why we’ve not won a trophy and why we’ve not got our best players [through injury].
“The review process will be covering everything. I think we should be competing in every competition right until the end.”
While City’s misfortune is clear, they also failed to act, unlike their rivals.
When Chelsea superstar Sam Kerr suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury last year, they broke the then-British record to bring in Colombian forward Mayra Ramirez.
The WSL leaders then splashed the cash in a world-record deal for defender Naomi Girma in January after losing Kadeisha Buchanan, also to an ACL injury.
Meanwhile, despite a growing injury list, City only signed four players in January, one of which was 20-year-old midfielder Aemu Oyama and allowed England international Chloe Kelly to join Arsenal on loan.
“Some of those [injured] players would walk into any team in the WSL,” said former City and England captain Steph Houghton on BBC Two.
“If you take away Shaw, Miedema and Greenwood, that is a spine of experienced players and also good quality players.
“You’ve got a 20-year-old in Gracie Prior that has come through the academy and has played a lot of games recently. Should she be in the team?
“This is not down to individual performances but ultimately we are trying to build a squad to go and win trophies.
“We are missing some key players. That has proved the difference. Without a doubt the strength in depth isn’t there and that is something we need to address.”
