Good morning, Arsenal Women aficionados!
Another double episode of your favourite Arsenal Women blog this week, as Jonas Eidevall’s team first grabbed a last-minute win at Southampton, in the Conti Cup group stage, then swept away West Ham at Meadow Park, in the WSL.
It means we’ve now won eight consecutive games in all competitions and cemented our place as the antagonists of defending champions and overall favourites, Chelsea.
Looking at the league table, one can’t help thinking about that shocking home defeat to Liverpool, in the opening game of the season, because otherwise we’d be toe-to-toe with Chelsea already – while we find ourselves trailing by three points. I am aware that I am stating the obvious here, but in a league that hardly forgives any slip-up against teams outside of the top four, losing to Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium might be considered as the ultimate sin. That’s the kind of result that makes the upcoming clash against the Blues a must-win game, or rather a don’t-lose game, such high the stakes are: if Chelsea runs away with the three points at the Emirates Stadium, our title challenge might well be over already.
First things first, though, as there are two games we should talk about and there is an international break to deal with, before we host Chelsea.
At St. Mary’s Stadium, on Thursday night, we took on Southampton for the second game of the Conti Cup group stage, aiming to grab three important points after beating Bristol City, the game before. Jonas Eidevall rotated his team very heavily, making nine changes to the team that won against Brighton in the league, but many of the usual starters came back to the starting line-up. Lia Wälti, Frida Maanum and Steph Catley being the most notable ones. Still, we lacked rhythm and incisiveness to truly trouble our opponent during the opening 45 minutes, with Southampton happy to sit in a low block and hit us on the counter – with little success, though.
Yet, once again, we found ourselves behind despite enjoying a large share of possession and dictating the tempo of the game. It would be unfair to say that Southampton goal came entirely against the run of play, but neither side truly deserved to take the lead, so slipping behind was a bit of a surprise, and forced the team to react.
If I’m being honest, I wasn’t overly confident that we would turn it around because the team looked lethargic and disjointed, while Southampton were full of energy and pushed by the record-breaking attendance of over thirteen thousand supporters, therefore Frida Maanum’s goal after five minutes from the hosts’ opener was a relief. Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, levelling things up didn’t really light our players up but got the game back to the slow-tempo, kind-of-boring state seen in the first half, and the penalty shootout looked inevitable.
All in all, I feel we deserved to win the tie but we were very lucky to get the three points, courtesy of Amanda Ilested’s header in the last minute of normal time. After the game, Jonas Eidevall didn’t sound very happy with the performance, especially in the first half, but gave credit to the team for the winning mentality they showed, although it wasn’t overly visible, given how chaotic and slow we were in our movement and passing. A win is a win, in the end, and those three points mean we remain top of the group, tied with Tottenham, who we will face three days after the league game against Chelsea.
The performance and the scoreline were much different when we faced West Ham, on Sunday: a comfortable three-nil win, at home, against a team that is under serious pressure to avoid relegation after a disastrous start of the season, and a second consecutive clean-sheet in the league.
The news of the day, when the official line-ups came out, was the omission of Lia Wälti from the starting XI, in favour of Kyra Cooney-Cross: when the Swiss captain started against Southampton in the league cup, on Thursday, I saw it as a kind of warm-up to get her place back, given her undisputed status of automatic starter, over the years – while Jonas Eidevall apparently had a different idea.
The Australian prodigy went straight back to the starting XI, alongside Victoria Pelova, while Lia Wälti sat on the bench of substitutes – a bold move that was simply unimaginable not long ago.
It seems that Jonas Eidevall gave a big shake to the established hierarchies, lately, with senior players asked to win their places back, rather than being eased back in the starting XI. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I feel that Jonas Eidevall is both rewarding the excellent performances from Kyra Cooney-Cross, while sending a clear message to the dressing room: no one is safe. Although the Australian midfielder entirely deserve her place on the pitch, it is always tricky to leave out the finest number six in the country, so I must give credit to our head coach for his bold choices.
In that regard, it will be very interesting to see what happens when Kim Little is fully fit again, as Victoria Pelova has been playing very well in central midfield, and Jonas Eidevall might have another very difficult choice to make.
Will he leave out both his captain and his established defensive midfielder if both are fit?
Will he risk disrupting the dynamics inside the dressing room and unsettling key players?
We’ll see what happens, so far his choices are a testament to the quality of the squad, more than anything else.
The story of the weekend was another one; a much happier one: Beth Mead getting on the scoresheet again.
The England forward scored a wonderful brace against West Ham, first finding the top corner with a curled shot off her left foot, then wrong-footing the goalkeeper from close range after a nice action from Alessia Russo.
More than her goals, though, it was her energy and counter-pressing that made everyone feel that Beth Mead was back: we like the goal scoring Beth Mead but we love the annoying Beth Mead – If I can say so – the one who harasses the full-backs, who closes down on her direct opponent, who chases lost causes. Those at Meadow Park had all of that, against West Ham, and I guess they took in every second of the best version of Beth Mead – one year after seeing her going down in tears.
Having Beth Mead close to her best will be vital against Chelsea, and overall for the second half of the season, and the same applies to Vivianne Miedema and Leah Williamson, as I mentioned in the past. The good news is that, even without those key players, we seem to have finally clicked in every department: at the back, Amanda Ilestedt and Lotte Wubben-Moy are showing a good understanding of each other; in midfield, Kyra Cooney-Cross and Victoria Pelova are forming an unexpected but effective partnership and upfront Alessia Russo is finding her feet, although she is still some way from being the central cog – and goal scorer – that we know she can be.
The hope is that the impending international break won’t come and ruin all of this, and that the team will be ready to go when Chelsea comes to North London, for what will be the first big showdown of the season.
We will talk again the Monday after the game, I leave you to your prayers and invocations for all our players to come back unscathed from the very last international break of 2023.
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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