Hello, Arsenal Women aficionados!
As soon as the starting XI came out, everyone could sense a difficult afternoon at Villa Park.
By making seven changes to the team that put four goals past Lyon and qualified for the UWCL final, Renée Slegers decided to rest her heroes and give valuable minutes to players usually relegated to the bench, or who are recovering from long-term injuries.
The result was a disjointed team, lacking structure and coordination, that went down crashing against a very energetic and direct Aston Villa team who took advantage of a very poor day at the office for the visitors.
Goals from Stina Blackstenius and Alessia Russo made the defeat slightly less embarrassing, but the loss means that Chelsea – who won against Manchester United – are WSL champions for the sixth consecutive time, and the race for the UWCL places remains wide open: Manchester City, who are currently fourth, play Manchester United on Sunday, while we travel to Bright the next day, then we host Manchester United in the final day and Manchester City host Crystal Palace.
In theory Manchester City could still catch us in second, but our superior goal difference (+19) makes that virtually impossible for Nick Cushing team; one point in the next two games will prove enough to book our place in next season’s UWCL, but we are at risk of slipping to third, which would be very unpleasant. If we put this horrible loss behind us and re-focus, we should be able to keep Manchester United at bay and finish as runners-up, all while preparing for the UWCL final in Lisbon.
Three days can make a hell of a difference, apparently. It is time to regroup and move on.
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RENÉE’S WORDS
The head coach was visibly disappointed when talking to the media, after the game, and didn’t look for excuses for our poor display:
“We knew this game was going to be a big challenge for us, coming away from a great result and success last Sunday to the two days to turn it around with travel and a lot of mental and physical demands and coming here to Aston Villa, and respect to Aston Villa, I think they’ve secured their spot in the league. They’ve come away from two wins, they’re developing their style of play, and they did really well. They played free and brave today and they put a lot of pressure on us. They have quality up top which we were aware of with speed, but it is definitely something we want to do better because we are very disappointed with conceding five goals today”.
Then, Renée Slegers moved on to analysing some of the reasons for this heavy defeat, with a specific focus on the mental preparation after the win in Lyon:
“It was a huge achievement to go to the final and I think we were very happy about that in a good way, I don’t think in that sense it cost us too much energy. But I think the preparation for the game, the travelling, everything we invested into that, it was so much […] I am going to gather my thoughts, the staff will do that, and players are doing that already because they want to understand, and they don’t want to lose. They are disappointed and everyone is doing that, and we will come together and align what we are thinking to move forward”.
Later in that interview, we learned that Jenna Nighswonger absence from the squad was for technical reasons – which suggests that she might not be totally integrated with the team and her new surroundings – while Daphne van Domselaar was rested as a precautionary measure but is not injured.
Finally, Renée Slegers answered some questions about the starting XI, the gameplan and the early substitutions:
“I think partnerships are very important in football, so players understand each other. I made the decision to do it this way tonight because we see the players in training every day, and they train together and play together every day. That is what we wanted to do today but partnerships are important. That is a factor but when you lose a game, and you are not happy with the performance, you are always going to go to “why” and there are a million different directions you can go and it’s probably a little bit of this and a bit of that. Of course, we will try to find out what we can learn from this and how we move forward because we need to learn that this will happen more often if we want to compete in the biggest competitions that we play games that are mentally and physically very demanding and we will have short turnarounds and will need to travel. There are a lot of learnings and from our end, on all fronts and that is the only way I can look at it now to go forwards […] We have a great squad. Just the scenario, at half-time we wanted to get fresh legs onto the pitch and wanted to make a couple of changes from how we wanted to do things, how we wanted to press and position ourselves. So that was why.”
No big surprises here, as breaking up well-established partnerships in key areas of the pitch often results in chaos and miscommunication. All in all, this was perhaps the most predictable loss of the season, as Aston Villa had a lot to play for while we were coming back from what has been the most important night of the past decade or so.
That said, Renée Slegers is perfectly on point with her comments about games coming thick and fast, and learning how to get ready in a very short time: if we want to keep growing and keep challenging for several trophies, we need to learn how to cope with the physical and mental challenges that go with our ambitions.
Brighton away will be a nice test for this, as another defeat would be hard to swallow and to justify.
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LESSONS LEARNED
I feel that there are two ways to look at this defeat: either our reserves are not good enough, or we still haven’t managed to keep everyone on their best level.
Tim Stillman not long ago wrote about how Daphne van Domselaar and Emily Fox are both upgrades compared to Manuela Zinsberger and Noëlle Maritz, but we need two equally capable options for each position if we want to go all the way domestically and in Europe.
Emily Fox is a major upgrade in critical positions, but we cannot expect her to play every minute of every competition, so we need her deputy to be at the required level to challenge her for the starting spot. That is easier said than done, because every player needs to play regularly to find her rhythm and her confidence, so perhaps we should work on making lesser changes but more frequently, rather than changing seven players at once. This doesn’t mean that our starting XI must change every week (Eidevall-style), but the difference in appearances and minutes played between our starters and their deputies is striking and is equal in every area of the pitch.
Seven of our players have played at least 75% of the minutes available in the league, so far, with the likes of Mariona Caldentey (88%) and Emily Fox (87%) virtually ever-present in every league game, which makes it very difficult for players at the other end of the spectrum to find any groove when getting on the pitch. Obviously, players playing together for long spells is a big factor in how the fluid and connected the team had looked in recent times, but I feel that there is a better balance to be found between the team’s chemistry on the pitch and sharing the minutes among the players.
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A good example of this could be Frida Maanum, who featured in 85% of the league games available but was on the pitch for 65% of the minutes available in those games. We have a large squad and some very capable back-up players, perhaps Renée Slegers should focus on giving them more minutes during the season.
There are exceptions, of course, because not every role is the same: a goalkeeper can play every minute of every game in a season, if fit, and central defenders are not running as much as full-backs, or wide players in general, so they don’t require the same amount of rest. Also, our current squad isn’t fully balanced in terms of options available for every position, partly because the club is investing in youth but also because players have swapped positions during the season and the gaps haven’t been filled yet.
As of today, we have an inexperienced centre-back deputizing for our starting right-back, and one of our two left-backs became a centre-half, pushing the club to recruit a new left-back who is not yet in synch with the coaching staff and the players.
I am very interested in seeing how the squad building will progress, next summer, and to what extent Renée Slegers will trust and use her bench.
Speaking of inexperienced players, Katie Reid was handed her first league start of the season and struggled to cope with Aston Villa pace and directness. She lost Daly for Aston Villa fourth goal of the afternoon and failed to react quickly enough to close onto Hanson for Villa second, but she was tidy on the ball and provided a beautiful assist for Alessia Russo header for our second goal. She remained calm and composed despite the struggles and never gave up fighting despite the hard time she was experiencing. This was definitely a big lesson for Katie Reid, and I am sure it will be very beneficial for her development.
Another interesting aspect of the game, which unfortunately wasn’t particularly pleasant, was Aston Villa ability to drag our central defenders out of position and exploit the gap they left behind them. Their fourth and fifth goals came from two similar situations, where Steph Catley followed her opponent deep into midfield and Aston Villa played with the space behind her. For the fifth and final goal of the evening, Grant came short to collect a line-breaking pass from the hosts’ defensive third, bringing Steph Catley with her, then played a quick one-two with Baijings before racing into the space vacated by the Australian and going all the way to score past Manuela Zinsberger.
As mentioned by Renée Slegers, there is much to learn from such a heavy and unexpected defeat, so I am curious to see how the team responds to the challenge and how they prepare for the final game of the campaign, against Manchester United. There is a likelihood that we will be playing for the second place, on the occasion, and while there is no trophy for finishing runners-up, it would be very welcome to finish on a high and establish a clear hierarchy behind Chelsea.
I wrote about this some time ago, and I stand by the idea that we need to make it clear for everyone that we are the challengers, we are those who can break Chelsea dominance in the league – and everyone else is a few steps away from both clubs.
Winning against Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium and consolidating the second place, hopefully with a big gap in terms of points, would send the right message to everyone else in the league. Doing that with the help of Alessia Russo goals would make it even sweeter, especially as the former Manchester United striker is currently the league’s top-scorer, tied with Bunny Shaw of Manchester City.
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NEXT’S UP
We will be on the pitch again on Monday, in Brighton, against a club that is safe from relegation but too far from the European places. The away win at Everton interrupted a series of three consecutive defeats for the Seagulls but was also only the second win in the last ten games, a pretty poor return for an ambitious club.
Given the circumstances, Renée Slegers may revert to her favourite starting XI, injuries permitting, to ensure that we head into the final day with our destiny in our hands and a good chance of finishing second in the league.
We will talk again after the game at Broadfield Stadium!
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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