Good morning, Arsenal Women aficionados!
Well, I didn’t expect to find myself here, discussing a home defeat to Liverpool in the Women’s Super League opener, in front of a record-setting 54’115 supporters at the Emirates Stadium.
What started as a wonderful day to kick-start our challenge at the title, ended up with Jonas Eidevall apologizing to the crowd after an insipid, although partly unlucky, display from a team that was built to chase a title that is evading us since 2019.
Given the injuries and lack of fitness after the World Cup, Jonas Eidevall went again with his favored 3-4-3 system, although slightly different compared to what we used to see: Cloé Lacasse, nominally deployed at right wingback, played much higher on the pitch while Katie McCabe, on the other side of the pitch, was a bit more conservative in her positioning. This worked very well in the initial stages of the game, with Liverpool struggling to read our rotations and overloads, but we couldn’t convert our territorial domination into goals. The surprise effect didn’t last long, though, as Liverpool quickly adjusted by protecting more their left flank and de facto halting our momentum, and from there onwards it became more and more difficult for the team to create clear-cut chances. We did dominate the ball, we did dominate the territory, but we only registered three shots on target, one being a cross-cum-shot from Katie McCabe easily tipped over the bar by the Liverpool goalkeeper, who was very good when palming away two fierce attempts from Frida Maanum and Kim Little, in the first half.
Given the players available to Jonas Eidevall, the support from the crowd and the anticipation for the season opener, the performance from the team felt probably duller than it actually was but the lack of urgency and the lack of intensity from back to front was very deflating, as the game went on. Liverpool did well to prevent us from playing through the middle and were very well drilled to deal with crosses and long balls, but the referee could and should have done more to limit the time wasting from the Reds, who took every little chance to delay the restart and let the clock tick.
That’s not to say that the visitors didn’t deserve to come away from the Emirates Stadium with something to show for their commitment and dedication, although a draw would have been a fairer result, because we cannot blame anyone but us for not winning this game. The most worrying aspect of this surprising defeat was probably Jonas Eidevall’s inability to counter Matt Beard’s tactical change, reverting to changing personnel instead of finding ways around Liverpool’s low block. Given the options at his disposal, the Swede could have done better to create new problems to our opponents, but instead he chose to throw Amanda Ilestedt, Lina Hurtig and Victoria Pelova for Lotte Wubben-Moy, Cloé Lacasse and Frida Maanum, respectively.
Perhaps the idea was to add aerial threat in the opponents’ box and have a better chance at scoring from a set-piece, an aspect Liverpool historically struggled with, but if it was, it didn’t work. Instead, Jonas Eidevall could have tried to add another technician through the middle and revert to a pure back-four, using Katie McCabe at right-back, or he could have tried to play Stina Blackstenius with Alessia Russo, instead of replacing the latter with the former.
I know it’s very easy and equally futile to discuss all the what ifs, so I’ll skip directly to what is next for this team: the unnecessary home defeat to Liverpool puts the players and the coach under pressure to deliver at Leigh Sports Village against Manchester United, next Friday. The Red Devils won a tricky away game at Aston Villa, coming back from one-nil down in the last ten minutes, and will be eager to reinforce their credentials by beating a direct rival, and the return of Alessia Russo to the red side of Manchester will add some spice to the whole thing. We will see if Jonas Eidevall will make some tweaks to his line-up, either tactically or in the names on the team sheet (or both?), and how the players will react after such a disappointing start of the season: the home game against Liverpool should have been a successful attempt at putting the Champions League debacle behind our backs, but it ended up being another major dent to everyone’s confidence and belief.
Suzy Wrack, on the Guardian, wrote that “it is not a crisis yet – there are plenty of World Cup hangover caveats to Arsenal’s sluggish defeat – but it is edging towards becoming one” and it is very difficult to brush away this feeling of insecurity emanating from the one-nil defeat to Liverpool, mostly because the players looked a bit lethargic after the encouraging first fifteen minutes or so, as if they didn’t have the mental and physical energies to overcome Liverpool’s passive approach. Steph Catley, after the game, spoke of the game as “just one of those days where it wasn’t going in the back of the net” while it truly wasn’t, especially in the second half, when Liverpool found it relatively easy to keep us at bay.
To be fair to the Australian, she also spoke of our lack of rhythm in the second half and the importance of getting thought these defeats to learn, grow and improve, so I hope that the players will be able to bounce back after the game against Liverpool.
The game against Manchester United could be a pivotal one, one of those games that can define a season and leave a mark on the team: win at Leigh Sports Village and you can come back roaring, lose and Suzy Wrack’s words could become reality much faster than expected.
This team provided so many examples of resilience, togetherness, and courage last season that it is impossible for me to even consider the idea that they won’t react, they won’t fight back after these early setbacks, so I am really looking forward to the game on Friday night.
We’ll talk again on Monday, to see what happened in Manchester and how the team handled the pressure of being under heavy scrutiny so early in the season.
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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