by Andrew Crawshaw
Arsenal
Back Row – Sari Van Veenendaal GK, Josephine Henning (CB), Farah Williams (MF), Dominique Janssen (MF), Jemma Rose (CB) (bending forward) , Kelly Smith (Forward) 83, Casey Stoney (LB)
Front Row – Danielle Van de Donk (Attacker), Alex Scott (C) (RB) 78, Jordan Nobbs (MF) 72, Vicky Losada (MF)
Subs – Emma Byrne (GK), Vyan Sampson (Def), Marta Corredera (MF) 72, Emma Mitchell (LB) 78, Katie McCabe (Forward), Asisat Oshoala (Attack), Natalia Pablos Sanchon (Attack) 83
Notts County
Walsh (GK), Potter, Buet 90, James 80, Moore, Whelan, Bassett (C), White, Turner 80, Clarke
Subs – Durack, Crighton 80, Krantz, Whelan 90, Luik 80, Hassall
The game started at 14:00 at a dry but very windy Borehamwood. The wind certainly made playing somewhat difficult being basically across the pitch making the path of the ball extremely erratic at times.
Arsenal had made two changes to the team that beat Reading in the Continental Cup last weekend, Sari returning in goal replacing Emma Byrne and Kelly Smith replacing Katie McCabe.
Jordan Nobbs soon announced that she was back to her very best when on 10 minutes she played an astounding long pass from halfway inside the Arsenal half behind the County defence, Danielle Van de Donk racing on to the ball to calmly place the ball into the County net. When the highlights are placed on to the Arsenal Player, you must have a look at it – absolutely fabulous. Well worth the price of entry on its own.
The same combination very nearly doubled the score a few minutes later but Danielle couldn’t quite turn the ball into the net. Arsenal were by a distance the better team in the first half, The Notts players becoming increasingly frustrated leading to their challenges becoming increasingly feisty.
Kelly Smith picked up a yellow card in the 32nd minute for a professional foul, Rachel Williams for Notts got one for a poor challenge in the 40th minute and Van de Donk and Jade Moore both got one for an incident in the Notts penalty area which saw referee Sam Purkiss call over the captains for a firm warning over future conduct. The Arsenal player was judged to have started things and the game restarted with a free kick to Notts when most in the ground (including the Notts players from their reaction) were expecting a penalty.
A rare County attack in the closing stages of the half was thwarted when Alex Scott put in a great challenge to deny Ellen White who looked favourite to test Sari.
Goalmouth action first half in the County goal
And in our end
The second half was pretty much a replay of the first with Arsenal scoring after 10 minutes. This time Nobbs scoring to finish off a good sequence of Arsenal posession and slick passing.
After that Arsenal seemed to stop forcing the pace and that enabled County to be more competitive. Sari made a great save to deny County a goal but, for the most part, County efforts were either high, wide or both. Sections of the crowd gleefully asking how high or wide County wanting the goal to be.
A late effort from Losada nearly added a third Arsenal goal but Walsh tipped the ball over the bar to keep the score at two nil.
Jordan Nobbs was votedArsenal Player of the game by the Supporters Association. She is certainly coming back to her best following injury and was well worthy of the accolade.
After the game Arsenal Manager Pedro Losa praised Jordan Nobbs. This is a quote from Arsenal.com
“We’re very happy to have her scoring goals and impacting the game. She loves to play for Arsenal, loves training every day with us and brings energy to the team. There’s no question about her level. She’s young and has lots of potential”
The Notts County manager Rick Passmoor was left to rue missed opportunities – quote from FAWSL.com “The result and the three points go to Arsenal fully justified. But for ourselves we need to get back out here on Monday and sort things out. We’re a good team with good players and we simply didn’t perform. On the day the best team won”
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | G.Diff | Points |
| 1 | Manchester City | 8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 20 |
| 2 | Chelsea | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 19 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 14 |
| 4 | Birmingham City | 9 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 13 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 9 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 12 |
| 6 | Notts County | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | -3 | 7 |
| 7 | Sunderland | 9 | 1 | 3 | 5 | -12 | 6 |
| 8 | Reading | 7 | 0 | 4 | 3 | -5 | 4 |
| 9 | Doncaster | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | -15 | 0 |
The result lifts Arsenal to third place in the table five points behind Chelsea and six behind Man City. Chelsea are our next opponents this coming Sunday and nothing less than there points will do. The game will be live on BT Sport at 15:00 for viewers in the UK.
COYLG
- Arsenal looking to buy six previously unmentioned players
- How Man City has weaved its around the anti-child-trafficking laws, and what Fifa are doing about it.
- The transfer debate: just a few of the transfers that were utter disasters
Untold Arsenal has published five books on Arsenal – all are available as paperback and three are now available on Kindle. The books are
- The Arsenal Yankee by Danny Karbassiyoon with a foreword by Arsene Wenger.
- Arsenal: the long sleep 1953 – 1970; a view from the terrace. By John Sowman with an introduction by Bob Wilson.
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football. By Tony Attwood, Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews.
- Making the Arsenal: a novel by Tony Attwood.
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal by Mark Andrews.
You can find details of all five on our new Arsenal Books page
Thanks for the report Andrew.
Nothing to do with this game report or the game, but having to do with the Ladies.
I see on the Arsenal.com website, that the WSL season is going to be shifted back to the old schedule, nominally the same as the mens schedule.
Which sort of means the FA have determined that this schedule (offset from mens) is a failure. Andrew, and others attending Ladies games, do you get the feeling from attendence at the games that things are a failure?
If not, it would seem to point to conditions off the pitch (such as TV) as being the indicator of failure.
I can imagine the Ladies had to juggle things in their personal lives a bit, when the league shifted to the offset year, and now they are going to have to juggle things again, to go back. Most of them have other jobs, and don’t make a lot of money.
Gord,
Attendances at The Arsenal games aren’t great. Normally just under the thousand mark. The fixture schedule for this season has been an absolute joke. A clutch of games then nearly a month break and another batch of matches before another break. No real consistency which makes it very difficult for both clubs and players..
I’m not even sure that the junior ladies teams followed the season change.
I know our ladies are full professionals but have no idea how muck they are paid. They all do have personal sponsors many of whom seem to be individuals. As examples – Marta Corredera and Asisat Oshoala are sponsored by Arsenal Norway, Natalia by Hazel an Intensive Care Nurse..
I’ll have to do some serious investigating over ladies salaries, a quick internet trawl didn’t unearth anything terribly useful.
Last year it seems that the Man City captain Steph Houghton (formerly of Arsenal) was the highest earning UK player with a Calgary of approx £65k pa plus a further £25-30k for England duties. The average UK prestige player salary was typically £35k.
In the US the top player was Alex Morgan (Portland Thorns) who topped up her £200k annual salary with endorsements worth a further £1.7m.
Quite a disparity on both sides of the pond and certainly between men and women in the UK.
Thanks Andrew for the report. Strange referee decisions sneaking in at womens football. But the consistency is they all go against Arsenal
A good report, Andrew, but no mention of any catering.
Don’t tell me you had to bring your own?
Well, if you are interested in food Nicky. 🙂
I recently made a “brain food” pie for my Mom. Savoury pies are not as common in Canada as they are in the UK. In any event, the filling was based on mashed potatoes to which omega-3 enriched eggs were added. To that, I added blueberries and salmon. I used canned salmon, which is nominally already cooked. This was returned to the oven to cook the raw egg component.
Perhaps the blueberries were not ripe enough, I tried “mashing” them with the potatoes a bit, but few blueberries broke. Some did break in the re-cooking.
I didn’t go looking for spices to put in this, as the combination of salmon and blueberries isn’t common in cooking (it is known to use blueberries in a sauce for fish, including salmon).
@Gord,
Thanks for that.
I was with it up to the potato, eggs and salmon but lost it by the inclusion of the blueberries.
Were you the source of the first Gordon Bleu? 😉
Probably not. In grade school, I think we were supposed to take French up to grade 7 or 8. At grade 3 I think they realised I was hopeless. Memorizing French words I could do, but I would butcher pronounciation and grammar. Same with German, my heritage.