Arsenal Ladies – Update and preview of Liverpool

by Andrew Crawshaw

Since my last Arsenal Ladies piece we have played two games against Chelsea and Sunderland (both away) and have gained the maximum of six points.  The league Table now looks like this :-

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	+/-	Points
1	Man City	9	7	2	0	19	23
2	Chelsea	10	7	1	2	16	22
3	Arsenal	10	6	2	2	10	20
4	Birmingham	11	4	5	2	1	17
5	Liverpool	10	3	4	3	2	13
6	Notts County	9	2	2	5	-7	8
7	Sunderland	11	1	3	7	-17	6
8	Reading	8	0	5	3	-5	5
9	Doncaster	6	0	0	6	-19	0

The 2 – 1 win against Chelsea narrowed the gap to just two points but City are still unbeaten.  I need to re-iterate that qualification for European competition next year only goes to the top two in the league so there is still work to be done.  There are video highlights on Arsenal.com

Chelsea Ladies 1-2 Arsenal Ladies

Sunday 24 July Arsenal were away at Sunderland and had a comfortable 4 – 0 victory  The goals came courtesy of first half goals from Vicky Losada and Jordan Nobbs and second half goals from Danny Carter and Fara Williams with a better effort from her second penalty of the game. (The first was saved by Laws but the rebound was adriotly dispatched by Losada).

Pedro Losa made two changes from the team that beat Chelsea the previous week.  With Josephine Henning away with the German Olympic team Jemma Rose Deputised and youngster Lotte Wubben-Moy stepped up to the bench.  Emma Mitchell earned a rest, Dominique Janssen filling in at Right back from her normal midfield position and Natalia came in to boost the attack.

In Min 12 We had a golden opportunity as Danny Carter was felled by Holmes and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot.  Fara Williams took the responsibility but her effort was saved by Laws, the rebound came to Losada who made no mistake with the follow up.

In Min 26 we doubled our advantage, Jordan Nobbs with a delightful finish following good teamwork with Van de Donk.  She nearly added a second but her shot from a cross by Alex Scott came back off the post.

In the second half we again came out pressing and four minutes into the half a cross by Janssen was converted by Dan Carter at the far post.  Minutes later we had the fourth with a second penalty awarded after Danielle Van de Donk was brought down.  This time Fara Williams made no mistake.  Despite a flurry of further chances that ended the scoring.

Arsenal now on a nine match unbeaten run.

The Arsenal Goals are on Arsenal Player

Sunderland Ladies FT Arsenal Ladies

The remaining games for the top three teams are

Arsenal

• Sun 31 Jul – Liverpool (Meadow Park 15:00) on BT Sport
• Sun 28 Aug – Notts County 17:00 (A)
• Sun 11 Sep – Man City (Meadow Park 14:00)
• Sun 30 Oct – Doncaster (Meadow Park 14:00)
• Sun 6 Nov – Liverpool 18:00 (A)
• TBC – Doncaster (A) Game should have been played on 21 May but is still to be rearranged

Of these six games, the only one carrying a big warning sign is the one against Man City.  We have beaten Notts County in both the league and FA Cup this season at Meadow Park and they have nothing to trouble us if we play to our strengths.  Liverpool are below us in the table and again I can’t see us not being able to get home and away wins there.  Doncaster have yet to win a game and so again should provide us with six points.  We need to score a bundle of goals in these five games as both Chelsea and City have a vastly better goal difference

We played Man City at the start of the season and had Jemma Rose sent off for a trip, Steph Houghton had earlier done the same and escaped the red card.  City made sure of all points when a penalty enabled then to score a second with only ten minutes of the game remaining.  We will be looking to reverse that setback at Meadow Park.

Man City

Information not available on the Man City official web site – error message 404 – File or directory not found.  Thanks folks!

On ManCity.com they have

• Sun 31 Jul 14:00 – Man City v Sunderland
• Wed 3 Aug 19:45 – Reading v Man City
• Thur 11 Aug 19:45 – Doncaster v Man City
• Sun 28 Aug 12:45 – Man City v Reading
• Sun 11 Sep 14:00 – Arsenal v Man City
• Sun 25 Sep 14:00 – Man City v Chelsea
• Sun 30 Oct 14:00 – Man City v Birmingham

City should have no problems until their last three fixtures, the Arsenal game on Sep 11; Chelsea on the 25th which must mean that Arsenal make up points on one or both of them and their season finale against Birmingham who are a very difficult team to beat.

Chelsea

• Sun 28 August 14:00 – Birmingham v Chelsea
• Thur 1 Sep 19:30 – Chelsea v Notts County
• Sun 11 Sep 14:00 – Reading v Chelsea
• Sun 25 Sep 14:00 – Man City v Chelsea
• Sun 30 Oct 18:00 – Chelsea v Reading
• Sun 06 Nov 18:00 – Notts County v Chelsea.

Chelsea start their last set of games with a tricky away tie against Birmingham and on 25 Sep have to travel to City.  Points dropped in these two games will certainly open the door for Arsenal to overtake them.  The home and away ties against both Notts County and Reading should present few problems.

In order to finish above Chelsea and/or Man City it is essential that Arsenal continue to win their games.  We also need to significantly outscore both of those teams as the final league positions could well come down to goal difference.  Our title run-in starts with:-

Arsenal v Liverpool, Sunday 31 July at Meadow Park.  KO is 15:00 and tickets are £6 (adults), £3 concessions and children.  No excuses not to go and watch.  If you can’t, the game is on BT Sport in UK (so should be available in other areas as well).

Liverpool have 3 wins from their 10 matches so far this year (Birmingham 1-0, Sunderland 4-0 and Reading 2-0) and 7 points fewer than us.  Due to a quirk (or incompetence in fixture arranging) we haven’t yet played them this year so there is no head to head information.  Chelsea comfortably beat them twice, but they did hold City to draws both home and away.

Clearly then they aren’t a team to be taken lightly and are unbeaten in their last six games however a home draw against Notts County (whom we have beaten comfortably) in their last game, would indicate that we shouldn’t find a victory impossible to contemplate.

COYLG

• Why the media is so critical of Arsenal: it all goes back to the two Arsenal men who were banned from football for life
• Planning For The Future: Who Could Succeed Wenger
• THE MORE THINGS CHANGE… Thoughts of an Arsenal supporter from across the pond.
• One of these transfers will be the DONE DEAL shortly, and Chelsea go bonkers on loans

Not all great transfers cost lots:

28 July 2002: Arsenal signed Gilberto Silva for just £4.5m.  The low fee came because Atlético Mineiro had not paid their players, were banned from transfer deals, and there were problems getting the work permit despite the fact he went on to captain Brazil.