By Tony Attwood
Chelsea are the reigning women’s premier league champions. But more than that they have won the title five times in the last seven years. But at Arsenal Stadium today Arsenal Women saw off Chelsea with a 3-2 win under the guidance of the new Arsenal manager.
Of course the media are using the moment to make snide comments about Arsenal – I think there is a new editorial directive around, so that the Guardian immediately comes up with the statement that Arsenal Women “are everything the men’s side are not.”
The reality was that Chelsea had most of the possession, and most of the shots, but the one thing they didn’t have (other than your actual goals) is shots on target – Arsenal had six to their four. What Chelsea got was 11 shots off target, and it showed a certain viewpoint; a vision that all they had to do was to shoot a lot and the goals would go in.
And certainly two of them did, but that’s not much good when the opposition get three.
The match was played at the main Arsenal stadium, not in the normal Boreham Wood stadium, and it attracted a crowd of around 8500.
I’m not a regular in watching the women’s side, and I only saw it on TV, so I hope Andrew is going to do a write up for us, but I do love to watch counter attacking football – there is just something so exciting about it. And that is what we got plenty of.
There were also some lovely scenes at the end with the players not just rushing off down the tunnel, but instead going over to the fans and signing autographs. A really nice touch.
Obviously Arsenal had an advantage of starting their season early, because by coming third last season, they had to play all sorts of qualifiers to go further into the Champions League. But still, they had to make the most of that situation, and that is what they did as the results so far show:
| Date | Home Team | Score | Away Team | Competition |
| Arsenal | 2 – 1 | Chelsea Women | Friendly Match | |
| Tottenham Hotspur Women | 0 – 4 | Arsenal | Friendly Match | |
| Aug 18 | Arsenal | 4 – 0 | FC Okzheptes | Champions League |
| Arsenal | 3 – 1 | PSV | Champions League | |
| Arsenal | 3 – 0 | SK Slavia Praha | Champions League | |
| Sept 5 | Arsenal | 3-2 | Chelsea Women | Super League |
There was also, on TV, a really good interview with Arsenal’s manager Jonas Eidevall who started coaching as an assistant, in his native Sweden at the age of just 23 for a division 2 side. He then took over and got the club promoted. He has since been Rosengård’s head coach where he took the team to first place in the league in both 2013 and 2014. In 2019, he took Rosengård to the Champions League quarter-finals of the Champions League.
I was very sorry to see our previous manager Joe Montemurro leave Arsenal, as Joe had regularly made himself available to Arsenal supporters who are members of AISA, the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association, and indeed he was the only Arsenal manager ever to do an interview with Untold.
But Joe announced that he was leaving at the end of last season to spend more time with his family and return to his native Australia. However no sooner had he left the club than on 8 June 2021 he was appointed the head coach of Juventus Women.
I am not sure what the story is behind that situation, but if anyone knows I do hope you will be able to write in and illuminate what happened.
Here’s the Arsenal team for this match.
Arsenal: Zinsberger, Maritz, Williamson, Beattie, McCabe, Walti, Little, Maanum, Mead, Miedema, Iwabuchi
The Arsenal Women were brilliant, I was there at the Game. They played well and should have domanated the Game, but allowed Chelsea to Come back with too much slow back passing. Chelsea score s the Arsenal looked tired. They came back to 100% energy 2nd Half, byt again in the last 10 min the looked as if they had tired. THey Held on for 3-2. Only Goals Scored by Chelsea were likely to go in. Arsenal Had 4 other effort which they should have converted. I don’t know where you got the info for the Game, it’s not what I saw. So it shold have been 7-3 at if all chances went In.
8705 tickets sold, some to a few Chelsea Fans who were vocal, and urged us to be more Vocal.
Good Sunshine as well.
Off topic
It is Bukayo Saka’s 20th birthday today and he celebrated by scoring the fourth England goal v Andorra (as well as providing two assists) with a good header into the bottom corner.
He is a credit to the club and to his family and appears to be really popular with both team mates and the spectators. When the teams were read out before the game his name got the biggest cheer.
Happy birthday Bukayo.
i saw our girls’ latest two wins in the CL and they impressed me a lot – couldn’t watch the game today, so thanks for the great news tony; i i’m sure andrew’s report’ll be as thorough as usual (thanks @rajshah for the insight as well)
think they’re on the way to a great season indeed – and the more they p..s off the guardian hyenas, the happier i’ll be
Review of the game to come later as well as the match on Tuesday against Slavia Prague.
I watched Beth Mead’s post-match interview on the BBC. She seemed to say that Jonas Eidevall works the players a little harder than his predecessor.