Everton Women boss Willie Kirk is paying little attention to Manchester City’s unusually poor form heading into Wednesday’s opening match of the FA Continental League Cup.

City began their league campaign with a 4-0 win over Everton at Goodison Park but have suffered defeat in four out of six games since.

Nevertheless, Kirk is refusing to under-estimate the threat posed by manager Gareth Taylor's City side.

“There will be very little focus on Manchester City’s form,” Kirk told evertontv.

“We know the things they do well and their vulnerabilities, which we’ll try to play on, while making sure we’re up for dealing with the threats.”

Everton head into the cup tie off the back of a 3-0 defeat to Arsenal, following two impressive wins in previous weeks.

While the squad were disappointed with the result, there were plenty of positives to take from Sunday’s match in the capital, which the side will look to build upon according to manager Kirk.

“They’ll definitely not let their heads drop,” he added. “We need to be back at it.

“It’s a tough Continental Cup group, but it’s a group we want to get out of and that means taking something from the game on Wednesday.

“We’ll set up to do that, to go and win the game.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Sunday, it is that when we play football, we’re good enough to compete against these top teams.

“We take our performance from Arsenal and make it better and that’s it."

One headache the Blues boss faces ahead of the trip to Manchester is over selection.

Several First-Team players missed the trip to London over the weekend, with Kirk managing an injury list that has grown significantly inside a short timeframe.

But he urged those set to play to rally together and be ready to compete.

“I would love to have all 21 players available every week," Kirk added. "Any manager would.

“We only had four outfield players on the bench on Sunday, so your changes are limited.

“This will not go on all season. There’s no way it will because our working practices are really good.

“There’s some further improvements we need to make at USM Finch Farm without a doubt, but the working practices are good.

“A lot of these have been freak one-off injuries.

“That will change and we just need to stay together as a team and build towards Wednesday.”