Good morning, Arsenal Women aficionados!
Who would have dreamt of such a big win? The way our team destroyed league leaders Chelsea was simply amazing and beyond my wildest dreams. The impact of this win is reminiscent of Jonas Eidevall’s first game in charge, against the same opponent, in the same stadium: after years of defeats and poor performances, the newly-appointed head coach guided his players to a convincing 3-2 home win and changed the narrative around the team, in one go.
This huge win, which propels us level on points with Chelsea at the top of the table, will certainly bring a lot of positives in and around the club, especially after the disastrous start to the season – and all the question marks around our ability to break Chelsea’s domestic dominance. The way we got this win is also very important and meaningful because we annihilated a great team and made them look at their worse – quoting Emma Hayes’ post-game press conference – which is quite a feat. As reported by Art de Roché in The Athletic, Jonas Eidevall and the players went back to their core identity and managed to master the four pillars that represent the foundations of this Arsenal team: smart positioning, intelligent press, bravery on the ball and impeccable balance between being aggressive offensively but disciplined defensively.
Beside the one mistake that allowed Chelsea to equalize, our wide players worked extremely well in tandem to limit our opponent’s threat on the flanks, and our central midfielders took control of the tempo, dictating play with some fine passes while crashing into the box with powerful, late runs. The intensity and sharpness of our players was too much to handle for a Chelsea team that perhaps wasn’t expecting such a fast start from us. As much as Jonas Eidevall lamented the inability of his players to get off the starting blocks with real purpose and impetus in the past, this time it looked like his players were ready to go from the very first second – something he will surely be very proud of.
What resembles more and more our ideal XI, with two notable absences in Leah Williamson and Vivianne Miedema, has delivered the performance and result of the season so far, and as much as Emma Hayes tried to play down the knock-on effects of this battering, Chelsea might have lost a bit more than “just three points”. When you “get bullied”, to quote the Chelsea manager, like that, all the confidence and swagger quickly evaporate, and the doubts start to creep in. Chelsea surely won’t implode or anything like that, but the 4-1 defeat to their closest challenger will leave a few scars and will shift the momentum.
How good can this Arsenal team be? Based on what we’ve seen on Sunday afternoon, when the scoreline should have been much more chastening for the visitors and since we’re still missing two world-class players, this team can be scarily good.
They can reach levels that were hard to imagine a month ago, when the season looked on the verge of derailing completely.
There was a time, on the Men’s side, when Mikel Arteta referred to a famous home win against Tottenham as the “BANG!” moment for his team – the very moment when the whole project clicked. This win, against the league leaders and defending champions, could well be the BANG! moment of this season and the game that will change the trajectory of the whole season.
Unfortunately, it came too late to salvage our hope to go a step further in Europe, but it came at a perfect time to mount a title challenge and let everyone know that the Arsenal is back, for good.
This Arsenal team is to be taken very seriously, and while Chelsea likely didn’t write them off after a poor start of the season, any chance of them being condescending towards an opponent they regularly got the best of in recent times has gone away after such a humbling defeat. Throughout the game, it looked like our players could read their opponents’ minds, such was the level of detail Jonas Eidevall and his staff went to when preparing this game: Chelsea could not build from the back, they would fall into every pressing trap setup in midfield and basically did everything in the exact way Jonas Eidevall imagined – which of course galvanised our players and had a devastating effect on the visitors.
My gut feeling is that this team will stay in Emma Hayes’ mind and her players’ for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if this, in hindsight, will be seen as the game that altered the story of the season. While it is too early to project what the league table will look like in May, such a massive win is worth way more that three points, or the fact that we have climbed all the way to the top (although we’re still second on goal difference). Big wins like this one build confidence and momentum and send shockwaves that last for a very long time.
The players will be on the pitch again on Wednesday night, when we face Tottenham Hotspur at Meadow Park in the Conti Cup, before playing them again in the league on Saturday, at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The mid-week game will be the perfect opportunity to bring the likes of Stina Blackstenius, Frida Maanum, Cloé Lacasse and Kyra Cooney-Cross to the starting lineup, with the young Australian prodigy very unlucky not to keep her place against Chelsea. Jonas Eidevall rightfully went for the experience and composure of Lia Wälti and was vindicated when the Swiss threaded two magnificent passes to create our first and third goals, but this time the Australian will surely have another chance to showcase her immense talent.
As usual when there is a double date on the same week, we will talk again on Monday, after the back-to-back North London Derbies against a struggling Spurs team: the ultimate banana skin?
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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