Barrow’s Georgia Stanway is embracing the biggest change in her club career so far, with Manchester City women getting used to life without Nick Cushing.

After six successful years in charge, Cushing stepped down following City’s recent victory against Women’s Super League champions Arsenal to take up his new role as assistant at New York City FC.

Former Republic of Ireland international Alan Mahon is in interim charge and was made to wait by Storm Ciara for his first match in the hotseat after last Sunday’s WSL fixture at West Ham was postponed due to the extreme weather.

Cushing gave Stanway her senior debut aged 16 in July 2015 and the now 21-year-old England international is grateful for what he’s done for her career.

Stanway said: “There was no better way to send him off than beating Arsenal because it was just what he deserved and he’s obviously going to be unbelievable over there [in New York] and I wish good luck to him.

“It’s the first time at Manchester City where we’ve changed manager.

“It’s good to be given the opportunity for something exciting and something new and obviously it was unfortunate to lose Nick, who definitely made me the player that I am today, but he’s got to go on and pursue his dream and something new and exciting could come up, so it’s just a matter of waiting that out.”

Stanway is also getting used to playing in a different position for the time being, after the forward was fielded at right-back against Arsenal, to fill in for Janine Beckie while she’s away with the Canadian national team for their Olympic qualifiers.

On her role for the next few weeks, Stanway said: “I’ve genuinely enjoyed it. I’m quite a tough tackler, in the sense of how I play and I like to get forward, so I’ve been able to play with the same mentality than I would playing further forward.

“It’s something different that I’ve been asked to do, so hopefully I can do what I can and I’ll do my best.”