It is still early days but if Nick Cushing’s side can maintain their 100% start to the season they will hand title rivals a real setback

Manchester City Women harbour a reputation as a club good players have an unfortunate habit of leaving but Nick Cushing’s side hope to spend the next few days emphasising that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence.

On Sunday, City can retain top spot in the WSL and leave Arsenal trailing six points behind and struggling to cling on to their coattails. Then, on Wednesday, they hope to knock Atlético Madrid – including Etihad Campus old girl Toni Duggan – out of the Champions League.

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Cushing’s ultimate dream would surely be to defeat a Lyon side featuring his former proteges Lucy Bronze, Izzy Christiansen and Nikita Parris in next spring’s final but first there are pressing domestic matters.

While Chelsea, two points behind City in second, will need to be kept in their place, City’s coach is anxious to ensure Arsenal’s defence of the title is unsuccessful. He hopes to suggest that Jen Beattie, the Scotland centre-half, made the wrong move when she defected to Arsenal after the summer’s World Cup.

With four league games gone it remains very early days but the match at Arsenal’s Meadow Park still looks potentially season-defining for the third-placed hosts and for guests arriving with a 100% league record.

Cushing’s cause could possibly be aided by Ellen White’s long-awaited debut in attack following her recovery from knee surgery. The England striker, signed from Birmingham, trained with City’s first team squad in Manchester on Friday. Despite sporting strapping on her left knee, White did not seem to be holding back as she prepared to show her new public that Parris’s attacking skills were not quite indispensable after all.

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Throw in the late fitness test that Vivianne Miedema – Arsenal’s Netherlands striker and the WSL’s leading scorer, with seven goals from eight shots on target – must undergo on a calf strain and the power balance might just be tilting Cushing’s way.

“It’s a huge game and then we have another against Atlético,” says a coach unlikely to forget that his side’s sole league defeat last season was inflicted by Arsenal on the campaign’s final day. The desire for atonement in Hertfordshire suggests no one will be rested in readiness for the Champions League last-16 return game in the Spanish capital despite the tie being delicately poised at 1-1 after the first leg.

“Points in WSL head-to-heads are important,” Cushing says. “We have to make sure we go to Arsenal with a team ready to win and solidify our place at the top of the league.”

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City must do so without the suspended Keira Walsh, their England holding midfielder who recently withdrew a transfer request, in the wake of her sending-off in last Sunday’s 2-0 Continental League Cup defeat by Manchester United.

Given that Arsenal’s richly talented midfield department includes Jordan Nobbs, Kim Little and Daniëlle van de Donk, Walsh’s absence represents a significant blow against a side that has not dropped a league point at Meadow Park since January. Moreover, Joe Montemurro has the added luxury of kicking off Thursday’s Champions League return game at home against Slavia Prague cushioned by a 5-2 first-leg lead.

Although the Continental Cup is less important than the two competitions looming on the horizon, losing to Casey Stoney’s ambitious neighbours still hurt City. “I don’t see it as my job to pick the players up,” says Cushing. “That’s their job. If a defeat to United in a derby doesn’t kick them up the backside, nothing will.

“I didn’t think we showed enough desire against United. It’s frustrating to have lost Keira for the next three games but we’ll put our best available team on the pitch at Arsenal.”

If he is well aware that Arsenal will have been stung by their recent 2-1 WSL defeat at Chelsea, the good news for Cushing is that England’s Georgia Stanway appears fit again following a hamstring injury while White, her fellow Lioness, is inching towards making her eagerly anticipated bow in the wake of that late summer operation.

“Top players are coming back at an important time for us,” says City’s captain, Steph Houghton. “And after letting ourselves down against Manchester United we know what we have to do at Arsenal and in Madrid.”

Should they succeed, Cushing will have emphasised that there really is life – and quite possibly silverware – after Bronze and co. City are not able to match the wages on offer at Lyon but as long as Houghton, White, Stanway and Jill Scott are still around they will remain a force to be reckoned with.