'I love this new challenge' - How WSL champions-elect Man City have got the best out of a revitalised and different Vivianne Miedema

It's hard to overstate how important that consistent availability of Miedema has been for her and for City. Despite a three-month absence in the middle of last season, and an injury that ended her 2024-25 campaign as prematurely as March, the former Arsenal star was still able to show often enough what has made her one of the most highly-rated players of her generation.

She managed seven WSL goals in just eight starts, while her two-goal display in the first leg of City's Champions League quarter-final clash with Chelsea was outstanding. She just didn't have the luck with injuries to be able to provide that magic all season long.

Given what she had been through since tearing her ACL in late 2022, it was no surprise to hear Miedema talk about how those early stages at City were tough. "I thought, ‘I’m not sure if I can do this and still want to do this at my age’," she told the club's official podcast.

But while one big silver lining from City's failure to qualify for the Champions League last season is the focus it has allowed them to put on a WSL title they are primed to lift, another is that the reduced schedule has allowed Miedema, who has regularly spoken about the negative impact of the growing fixture list amid the prevalence of ACL injuries in the women's game, to maintain such impeccable fitness.

"This season, I think everyone can see I feel like a completely different person and player," she told the City podcast, something the numbers back up. Only Khadija Shaw, City's outstanding No.9, has more direct goal involvements in the WSL this season than Miedema's 11, while only Kerstin Casparij, another stand-out performer for City at right-back, has more assists.

Miedema has also created more big chances than any other player in the WSL, with her ranking third for key passes, shots and shots on target. In short, she's absolutely thriving in this City team.

She is doing so in a No.10 role for the first time on a consistent basis, too. It's a role that Miedema has always had some essence of in her game, regularly describing herself as 'a 9.5', and she was given some of the freedom to play like that at Arsenal, dropping deep to create while also getting on the end of chances herself.

But while she primarily played as a No.9 with the Gunners, Miedema has almost always been deployed as a No.10 since moving to City, a position she clearly enjoys the most.

"In my head, I’m not an out-and-out No.9," she told City's podcast. "I leave games happier when I’m involved a lot rather than scoring a couple of goals."

Previously, some wondered whether Miedema could really thrive as No.10 week-in, week-out without it negatively impacting her team, because of the greater defensive impetus it places on the rest of the midfield. However, new head coach Andree Jeglertz has found the perfect formula.

Under previous boss Gareth Taylor, it felt like City didn't quite have the right midfield make-up to be solid off the ball and dangerous going forward, not with Miedema in there. Jeglertz, though, has established a formidable duo behind Miedema of Yui Hasegawa and Laura Blindkilde Brown.

Under Taylor, Hasegawa largely played as a lone holding midfielder, with two more attack-minded players in front of her. Blindkilde Brown, though, has actually sat deeper at times this term, allowing her Japanese team-mate to show more of her attacking talent while still contributing out of possession.

The two have formed wonderful chemistry in the middle of the park and have excelled in providing enough protection for the defence between them, so that Miedema really can roam freely and be as dangerous as possible in attack.

"My job is to put her in positions and situations where she can express herself," Jeglertz said of the Dutchwoman earlier this season. He's certainly done that.

The end result is not just that Miedema is playing extremely well; it's also allowed a wonderful relationship between City's No.10 and No.9 to blossom.

Shaw is running away with the WSL Golden Boot this season, scoring at least twice the number of goals as anyone else in the WSL, and while so much of that is down to the excellent work she does herself, the deadly partnership she has formed with her Dutch team-mate has played a notable role, too.

Shaw and Miedema's link-up play is excellent, with Miedema understanding the type of service the striker wants and, more often than not, able to provide exactly that.

"She's been in that position so she knows familiar runs," Shaw said of Miedema recently, speaking to Sky Sports. "When she looks up, I just have to get going because I know she's going to play a really good ball to me. That's just something that we've been working towards."

It's not just about Miedema picking out Shaw with passes, either.

"Where we've got to a different point is that, as a team, we make runs to create space for someone else as well," Miedema explained. "[Bunny's run] might actually open up [space] for me driving in with the ball and taking a shot myself. [Or] if I need to run into the front post to take a centre-back away [from Bunny], then that's what I need to do."

"It's just the chemistry," Shaw added. "We've been working on it throughout pre-season, all the way up to now. It's not just something that happens overnight. Training day in day out, being on the same teams in training, constantly communicating, if it doesn't work, it's going to work the next time. I think the repetition, time and time again, definitely helped us."

That partnership is at the heart of the deadliest attack in the WSL this season, one which has scored 41 goals in 14 games to put City 11 points clear of the rest of the pack with eight games to play. Chelsea have been England's dominant side for the past six years, winning every league crown from the 2019-20 season onwards. But after being the key instigator in the last club other than the Blues to win this trophy, scoring 22 goals in 20 games in Arsenal's triumph in 2019, Miedema looks set to be integral to Chelsea's dethroning, in a very different way.

"I love that I now have a new challenge and can give something else to the game. That's how I see it," she told Sky Sports of her season to date in this No.10 role. "For me, it's just a luxury, really, to be on the ball and be able to play all of [our forwards] into space and put them in front of the goalkeeper. I've been really enjoying that."

"We're always trying to find Viv," Shaw added. "Because when she's got the ball, things just naturally happen." It's one of many reasons why Man City have been the best team in England this season - and by quite some distance.