Good morning, Arsenal Women aficionados!
Digesting the early elimination from the Champions League wasn’t easy but it is time to move on and think forward, rather than being stuck on what could have been and won’t be. Not being involved in the biggest European competition surely sucks, especially now that Mikel Arteta’s boys finally broke into it, but the only way is forward.
With the season still far away, it is time to reflect on the club’s progression off the pitch, especially after the latest moves and appointments. On September 6th, a few hours before our game against Linköping, the club announced the arrival of Renee Slegers, a former youth player in the late 2000s and then an accomplished international with the Netherlands, where she played alongside Daniëlle van de Donk, Vivianne Miedema, Dominque Janssen and Sari Van Veenendaal before turning coach and succeeding Jonas Eidevall at the helm of Rosengard and winning back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022.
The Dutch, who has worked with Jonas Eidevall before replacing him in Sweden, will play a vital role in transferring the coach’s ideas on the pitch and implementing his vision, now that the team truly looks like “his” team. In a similar although less toxic fashion to Mikel Arteta, Jonas Eidevall has rebuilt the team from back to front, signing several key players to replace veterans such as Jordan Nobbs, Lisa Evans, Daniëlle van de Donk, Viktoria Schnaderbeck, and moved away from the philosophy and style of his predecessor, Joe Montemurro. Such drastic changes commanded time to be implemented and a bit of luck, something that Jonas Eidevall surely didn’t have as his players were hit by long-term injuries, one after another.
Having the right players is extremely important but so is having a coaching staff familiar with the ideas and methods of the head coach, and Renee Slegers ticks most boxes and will be able to pass the ideas onto the players, on the training pitch.
Another key appointment has been made a few days ago, with the return of the legend or all legends Kelly Smith to the coaching staff, with a specific assignment on attacking players. The former striker, captain, and England international comes back permanently after the short-spell last season, and will bring with her an incredible aura, as well as tons of experience and knowledge about the club and football, which will be very helpful for the players.
While Renee Slegers knows the coach’s ideas and will help spreading them around the camp, Kelly Smith knows better than anyone what it means to represent the Arsenal, what are the values of the club and what are the expectations, which will surely prove valuable for players like Alessia Russo, Cloé Lacasse, Lina Hurtig, Stina Blackstenius or Victoria Pelova, who are all new or partially new to the party.
Finally, the club was able to fill a long-term vacancy, one that costed us a few points in the past three season: a defensive midfielder capable of competing with Lia Wälti or being a valuable deputy. I had big hopes around Malin Gut, but she soon felt homesick and was unable to carry the weight of being part of such a big club, so I hope that Australia international Kyra Cooney-Cross will be up to the challenge and provide a nice solution on the short and long term. Widely earmarked as one of the brightest talents in world football, the former Hammarby prodigy should be considered as a coup for the club and a great addition in a key position that has long been a deficit for Jonas Eidevall and the team.
Her arrival, combined with the return to training of long-term absentees Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, Laura Wienroither and Leah Williamson, will give Jonas Eidevall a full squad to choose from and the training camp at Adidas HQ provided the perfect platform for the coaching staff to work on the players’ chemistry, tactical understanding, and cohesion – which could represent an invaluable advantage when the season finally kicks off. Although three of them are still quite far away from a full-time return, with Beth Mead the closest to being involved in competitive games, there is a feeling of completeness around the team, a feeling of competitiveness in the ranks and a positivity that will help the healing process that started straight after the final whistle of the match against Paris FC.
There is still one gap in the squad, a single point of failure that will remain so until the turn of the year, most likely. With Laura Wienroither still out, we only have Noëlle Maritz to play at right-back, but with no European football (sigh) and with the Conti Cup group draw relatively favourable, Jonas Eidevall should be able to manage the load and rotate the Switzerland international with Steph Catley and Katie McCabe, who might not be natural right-backs but have all the attributes to make a difference on the wrong side of the pitch, too. I’ve seen worse stop-gap solutions, in the past.
With less than a weekend before the Women’s Super League opener, it is finally time to get excited again and help the team to achieve the target, which always is will be winning every trophy at stake. The supporters seem ready to go, since 47,000 tickets have already been sold for the home game against Liverpool, at the Emirates Stadium.
Will the team be ready, too?
We will talk after the game and see if we managed to kick-off our season with a win, possibly a convincing one, and make sure that the Champions League disappointment is well behind us. Chelsea and Manchester United look like the rivals to beat for the title, which would be the first since 2019, and starting well is going to be paramount to build the belief.
Speak to you soon!
Italian living in Switzerland, Gooner since mid-nineties, when the Gunners defeated my hometown team, in Copenhagen. I started my own blog and podcast (www.clockenditalia.com) after after some experiences with Italian websites and football magazines. Covering Arsenal Women with the occasional rant about the boys.
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