Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!
The game was lost, then won, then almost thrown away, moments before full-time. Being an Arsenal fan is unhealthy, isn’t it? For the first game after the international break, Renée Slegers handed Chloe Kelly her first start of her second spell with Arsenal, and the former Manchester City winger repaid the vote of confidence with a goal and an assist during the tipsy-turvy 4-3 home win against West Ham United.
The unexpected slip from Chelsea at Brighton shortened the league table at the very top and, although the Blues remain largely favorite to win the title, could make the final few games slightly less boring.
Photo courtesy of Arsenal.com
Sonia Bompastor’s team easily dismissed Leicester City on Wednesday, though, to restore a comfortable lead at the summit, but Manchester City were held to a draw by West Ham, handing us an opportunity to create a four-points gap between the sides. To achieve that, we will have to defeat Everton away from home, next Friday, which is not necessarily a given – especially if our defensive line looks as shaky as it looked on Sunday, last week.
RENÉE’S WORDS
“It was a rollercoaster, this game.” Yes, it was, Renée. Yes, it was.
The head coach was visibly relieved when speaking with the media shortly after the thrilling home win on Sunday, but she was very aware that Arsenal walked themselves into troubles with a sloppy start of the game: “It’s never because of one thing, it’s a cocktail of things […] but we don’t make the right decisions early in the game and we forced things central a little bit too much and they are quite high with their line as well, so they they’re very aggressive in central areas. We give them an opportunity to press forwards and so I think it was a tough period. They get two goals, so they also get full rewards for what they’re doing […] yeah, I think we pride ourselves in keeping clean sheets and being very solid defensively and that’s unfortunately not what we did today. But we also come from a situation where almost the whole squad has been away with national teams. Some of them have been on another continent, coming back and performing like this, so there is a context to it.”
Despite the obvious flaws at defending set pieces and the alarming number of goals shipped in against Manchester City and West Ham, Renée Slegers chose to highlight her team’s mental fortitude and willingness to come back from behind: “I think we put ourselves in a situation, we paint a scenario where we go 2-0 down. I’m not sure if that’s happened before since I’ve been coaching the team and I’m just very proud of the team, how they show character and strength of coming back from such a scenario […] I’m not sure who it is, is it Beth taking the ball off the line, I don’t know, several players are involved. I have to see it back, but that just shows how much the team wanted it today and the desire and the motivation that’s in the team to represent Arsenal and get the wins over the line, so I’m very proud. It wasn’t always pretty, the surface was hard to play on, but we got the win.”
The all-important win was all that mattered on Sunday night, so Renée Slegers is right in hiding some of the problems on display against West Ham and praising her players instead. We need our players at their best, especially from a mental standpoint, to cope with the hectic schedule ahead of us, if we want to stand a chance to progress in the FA Cup, the UWCL and finish as high as possible in the WSL.
LESSONS LEARNED
The game became way too chaotic, but the team embraced the chaos and decided to go at full speed, sacrificing some control along the way.
After going to the changing room 1-2 down, Renée Slegers decided to turn her team upside down by throwing in Stina Blackstenius for Frida Maanum at halftime, then Kyra Cooney-Cross and Caitlin Foord for Kim Little and Lia Wälti, shortly after West Ham extended their lead with a deadly counterattack.
Suddenly, the players found momentum and forced West Ham deep in their half, and they instantly went from 1-3 to 3-3 thanks to the new impetus provided by the substitutes. With Stina Blackstenius stretching West Ham defensive line vertically, and the wingers doing the same horizontally, we started to find pockets of space in the middle third and in wide areas and apply pressure in a very consistent way, especially when Kyra Cooney-Cross had time on the ball to hit long diagonal balls to either side of the pitch.
Photo courtesy of Arsenal.com
Despite not scoring or assisting, the Australian playmaker provided the spark we needed in midfield and found her teammates with line-breaking passes, allowing Alessia Russo, Mariona Caldentey and our wingers to pose a real threat from their respective positions.
It’s not a coincidence that Katie McCabe marvelous goal, reminiscent of Robin van Persie’s own wondergoal against Barcelona some time ago, came with Kyra Cooney-Cross switching play to Caitlin Foord, who kept the width on the left wing to make space for Katie McCabe’s underlap run deep into West Ham penalty area. The rest, they say, is history.
The other big story of the night was Chloe Kelly’s second full debut at Meadow Park: the England international brought the team back into the game with an acrobatic finish after a ghosting run into the penalty area, then provided the assist for Leah Williamson’s equaliser, from a corner. Numbers aside, Chloe Kelly slotted in nicely after her loan move from Manchester City and will surely prove to be a great asset with her directness, speed and finishing skills – although her experience in big games could be the real game changer for the team.
Whether it is off the bench or in the starting XI, Chloe Kelly is a wonderful option to have for Renée Slegers, on either side of the pitch, and can change a game in a split second in a way that very few players in the current squad can.
Photo courtesy of Arsenal.com
NEXT’S UP
Before we play Everton in the league and try to push away from Manchester City in the league, we will host Liverpool to battle for a place in FA Cup semifinals, on Sunday afternoon. With the last win dating back to 2016, when Danielle Carter netting the winning goal against Chelsea, it is perhaps time to renew with the winning feeling and grab a fifteenth trophy, although all of Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are overwhelming favourites to reach the penultimate stage of the competition and will be very tough opponents in a potential final showdown in Wembley.
We will speak again next week to comment on the FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool.
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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