Arenal Women – Preview of the second half of he season Part 1

 

 

• Be prepared for the new FFP explosion on Sunday (or Monday latest)
• How much money have PL clubs made from selling 16 year olds?

by Andrew Crawshaw

The first half of the season was one of highs and lows. In the Champions League, we failed to qualify for the knockout stages failing to beat Paris FC with an injury-ravaged squad before the WSL season started.

The WSL season also didn’t quite go according to plan P10, W7, D1, L2

Sun 1 October – Arsenal 0 – Liverpool 1
Fri 6 October – Manchester United 2 – Arsenal 2
Sun 15 October – Arsenal 2 – Aston Villa 1
Sun 22 October – Bristol City 1 – Arsenal 2
Sun 5 November – Arsenal 2 – Manchester City 1
Sun 12 November – Leicester City 2 – Arsenal 6
Sun 19 November – Brighton 0 – Arsenal 3
Sun 26 26 November – West Ham United 0 – Arsenal 3
Sun 10 December – Arsenal 4 – Chelsea 1
Sun 16 December – Tottenham 1 – Arsenal 0

The plus points were the wins over Manchester City and Chelsea at home.  The Chelsea game in particular was pleasing as they have been the team we have had most difficulty in beating in recent years.

The negatives were the losses to Liverpool and (for the first time ever) Tottenham. In both games, the opposition parked the bus and hit us on the break. On neither occasion were we able to fashion meaningful scoring opportunities and we were caught out too easily by the rare opposition attack.

The current League table is:-

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Chelsea	10	8	1	1	32	11	21	25
2	Man City	10	7	1	2	26	7	19	22
3	Arsenal	10	7	1	2	24	10	14	22
4	Man United	10	5	3	2	25	11	14	18
5	Liverpool	10	5	3	2	15	11	4	18
6	Tottenham Hotspur	10	4	3	3	15	20	-5	15
7	Everton	10	3	2	5	9	19	-10	11
8	Leicester City	10	2	4	4	15	21	-6	10
9	Aston Villa	10	3	0	7	12	22	-10	9
10	Brighton	10	2	2	6	10	22	-12	8
11	West Ham	10	1	2	7	8	21	-13	5
12	Bristol City	10	1	2	7	10	26	-16	5

The third competition we have played in is the Continental Tyres Cup (League Cup)

Here our failure to qualify for the last 16 of the Champions League meant we were parachuted into the group stage to play Bristol City, Southampton, Spurs and Reading.  To date results have been OK but certainly not outstanding:-

Thu 9 November – Arsenal 3 – Bristol City 1
Thu 23 November – Southampton 1 – Arsenal 2
Wed 13 December Arsenal 3 – Spurs 3 (Arsenal won 4 – 3 on penalties)

The match against Reading is on 24 January in Reading and a win (or a draw with Tottenham failing to win) will see us win our group and qualify for the quarter-finals.

In summary

1. To date we haven’t scored enough goals
2. We have let in too many
3. We have failed to dominate lower-placed teams in the manner we have become used to.

The easy explanation would be to blame the ongoing injury situation. We started the season with no fewer has five players out with, or in the early stages of returning from, ACL injuries. Beth Mead, Vivianne Miedema, Leah Williamson, Laura Wienroither and Teyah Goldie. The first three would be automatic starters in just about any team in the world and so their absence is a major factor in the main problems we have had this year.

Beh Mead now seems to be fully up to match speed, Viv has been getting minutes in recent games, but hasn’t really looked up to full speed yet and Leah, has been training but won’t yet be fit enough to make a match-day squad. We are unlikely to see Laura or Teyah play any meaningful part of this season.

As an aside, it will be interesting to see how Chelsea cope without Sam Kerr as she has just suffered the same injury in recent training.

But the injury situation really hasn’t been the only reason for the quality of our play. At times we have looked like a bunch of strangers with poor choices of passes, good runs not being picked and an overreliance on safe passing in front of a parked bus. Our strikers, like the men have been off target far too often and, to date, defenders have outscored midfielders. We really need a massive improvement across the board to regain our best free-flowing movement and incisive one-touch passing

On the transfer front, the news so far is:-

• One outgoing transfer – Full back Noelle Maritz has moved to Aston Villa where she has signed a two and a half year contract with an option of a further year. Noelle joined us from Wolfsburg in summer of 2020 and made 92 appearances.
• The club have just announced the signing of a direct replacement in 25 year old American International Emily Fox from North Carolina Courage.
• Promising youngsters Gio and Kathrine Kohl are expected to leave on loan later this transfer window

This coming Sunday we restart with a FA Cup match against Watford. Watford are currently bottom of the WSC Championship so it will be a shock of seismic proportions if we fail to progress to the fifth round.

To get the best possible preparation for the cup tie, the squad have been in Portugal for a training camp and Leah has been part of the squad training for the first time since her ACL.

A Cup game against a much lower-ranked team should provide the best possible way for the squad to get back to full speed for the second half of the league season where we will have to be virtually perfect in terms of results if we want to win the WSL.

The match is at Borehamwood with a 13:00 kickoff and should be on the FA Player.


COYWG